New Start
by Mr Ilax
Summary: After moving to Vacuo to be with her boyfriend and work her dream job, Yang ends up with neither. Its time for a new start, and one night a cat follows her home. Modern AU set in Remnant.
1. The First Step

**Author's Note: So new story time. This one is a little different than my normal style. It was originally thought up for the July Reddit Moncon. Then on Sunday, I got up ridiculously early, ran a half marathon, downed an energy drink and a coffee, and started to right this. It would have been out sooner, but my editor, Zelindsay, went wandering down the road trying to catch Pokemon.**

 **This is set in an AU. Essentially everything takes place in Remnant, faunus exist, but there is no grimm, no aura, no fancy weapons. Its essentially the modern day world.**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

"Agh!" The yell echoed through the apartment. "That rat bastard!"

The sole occupant stared at the note in her hand. She should have expected this. After all, she worked for that jerk's father. Well, it would be better to say that she used to work for that jerk's father. She should have figured something was up with Mercury as, when she was leaving her job from Black Aero Engineering, the secretary handed her paperwork notifying her that she was being fired from her job and she should expect her severance package forms and final paycheck in the mail in five to ten business days.

Now, without a job, she returned home to hopefully derive some comfort by spending time with her boyfriend only to find a note on the coffee table. Turns out that not only was her boyfriend of two years, the one she moved across Remnant with when he got his dream job, leaving her, but he was the reason she was fired too! Lovely.

Taking a deep breath, and taking stock of her situation, she walked to the fridge and opened it. Looking for something to drink she noticed that the deserter took all the good beer with him too. Groaning and silently cursing him under her breath, she settled for a low-quality light beer that they had always saved to serve to guests after they had a few too many drink in order to slow further intoxication; not that they would ever notice the switch by that point. If there was a silver lining to the situation it seemed that Mercury had up and left without taking any of their shared possessions with him. He only seemed to have walked off with his clothes, gaming console, and the decent booze.

The move from Vale to Vacuo had been an easy choice to make at the time. She had no attachments to her home. Her mom abandoned her when she was a newborn child, her step-mom died in a car crash many years ago, and her father was a worthless drunk. The only thing that had kept her in Vale was her baby sister. Baby sister was a relative term though. Ruby was only 6 years younger than her, but she had raised Ruby since their father was always absent. When she left for college, using money left in a savings account that only she could touch that was left by her step-mother, she had gotten an apartment and enrolled Ruby in a nearby school. That way she could take care of Ruby and attend college to obtain her degree in mechanical engineering.

After graduating, she got a job at the Black Aero Engineering in Vale and started saving money. This is when she first met and started dating Mercury. Unfortunately, when Ruby enrolled in college, they found that their father had found a way to pilfer money from Ruby's saving account. So, without hesitation, she took the burden upon herself to pay for her sister's schooling and Ruby had chosen to go to a university in Atlas. A year after she and Mercury had started dated, with Ruby staying at her school for her summer term, Mercury had announced that he was moving back to his home country of Vacuo and had got the company's branch to give her a better paying job. So she moved to Vacuo and into a shared apartment with Mercury.

"Great, Yang." She scolded herself as she slid into one of the chairs that sat around their kitchen table. "You have no job, no boyfriend, probably only a few months worth of rent, and Ruby's tuition will be due again soon."

Luckily, the last one could be solved more easily by taking out a loan. Not having a boyfriend sucked, but it wasn't the end of the world. Not having a job, and the ever impending threat of paying for rent, utilities, and food, was something to stress about. Deciding to deal with it in the morning, Yang left her half finished beer on the counter and flopped down on her bed without changing her clothes. Sleep didn't come quickly, but it eventually did take her away from her problems; if only for a few hours.

The morning light pulled Yang from her slumber, causing her to groan and burrow under her blankets. She had forgotten to close the blinds over her bedroom window. Being completely encased in blankets quickly made her too warm to fall back asleep and she kicked her blankets off with a frustrated sigh. Looking over to her nightstand she noticed that her clock read a few minutes past eleven am. It was a good thing that she forgot to set her alarm too. Waking up early for a job you don't have anymore would not make for a good morning. Grabbing her laptop from its place next to her bed, she shed her clothes from the previous night and threw a robe on, and headed to the kitchen. It was time to plan for the future and how to recover from yesterday's events.

Instead of turning the coffee pot on, as was her habit on work days, she instead reached inside her fridge to grab one of her remaining energy drinks. Choosing to savor the acidic drink, she took small sip rather than her normal procedure of chugging the first half of beverage. She was going to need to cut back on her expenditures, so energy drinks would probably be demoted from mainstay to luxury. Flipping her laptop open she set forth on her mission of financial planning and resume construction so she could know exactly how long she could enjoy her temporary unemployment.

* * *

"Agh!" The blonde yelled as she kicked an empty soda can that someone had carelessly discarded on the street. "This was supposed to be easy!"

While walking back to her apartment after her latest job interview she was in high spirits, until she received a call from the hiring manager from Sutrai Auto, where she had just interviewed. While her specialty was Aerospace, she was more than competent to work at an automobile factory too. The hiring manager simply told her that they were going with a different candidate and wished her luck. This would make the fifth firm that had turned her down in the last week.

Her frustration only lasted for a few moments before her scroll began to ring. Pulling it out she automatically answered it.

"Yang Xiao Long speaking."

"Pfft… Bahaha... You sound so silly, sis!" The voice on the other end responded.

"Oh, hey Rubes." Yang responded slightly despondently and walked off the sidewalk to sit on a bench in the park she was just passing.

"Don't you know that you are speaking to Miss Rose." Ruby tried to sound formal but by the end of the sentence the younger sister had broken down into laughter again.

"Yeah, yeah. What's up?"

"Well, I was going to tell you that I am going on a trip with a friend I just made this last term. But you sound kind of sad, so I might come visit you instead. Oh! You can show me around that fancy company you work at. I can say hi to Mercury again, it's been a while. I mean he's kind of a jerk, but seems to make you happy."

"Uh… nah, don't be a goof. Go on your trip. I'll still be here when you get back."

"Are you sure? We could drop by on our way."

"Positive!"

"Hmmm… ok…" The phone line was silent for a while and Yang knew that her sister could probably see through her false front. "Oh, there is a catch."

"What kind of catch? You aren't going someplace secluded and unattended with a boy are you?"

"Nah. Weiss is a girl."

"Ooh la la, a girl you say. I knew you had it in you."

"Hey, I just… uh… fine. I like her a little bit."

Yang didn't respond, instead she let the silence bear down on her sister's nerves.

"Fine!" Ruby exclaimed. "I like her alot, I just don't want you to mess anything up."

"I would never mess anything up for you! I am heartbroken you would even suggest I would."

"How about my freshman year of highschool, my boyfriend grabbed my butt and you punched him in the gut and kicked him out of the house? Or my senior year when you-"

"Ok, ok. I get it. But they all deserved it. So what's the catch?"

"Well, technically it's a 'study program' and Weiss managed to get us the two spots. We are going to Menagerie for 4 months. It's all paid for by the school so we won't have to worry about Fall school tuition. We will get to study the technology they are developing down there. The problem is…"

"The problem is that menagerie only allows governmental communications to go in and out. I applied for that same program when I was in school."

"I know, and I don't think I can go that long without talking to you! But I would get to meet faunus! I know there are some floating around the rest of Remnant, but they make up only like point one hundredth of a percent of the population. Menagerie is like ninety percent faunus!"

"Do it, Ruby. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. But you have to find out one thing-"

"I am not asking them if they can turn into animals. That's rude! That would be like someone asking you if people from Patch can breath underwater!"

"I would totally tell them yes!"

"Not my point, Yang. Though I am worried about something else. I haven't known Weiss for long, how do I know that she isn't a serial killer or something?"

"What's her middle name?"

"I don't know, I never asked."

"Well, if she was a killer you'd know her middle name already." Yang chuckled.

"I thought you were going to give me good advice."

"I did!"

"So you say." Ruby's side of the line went quiet and Yang was able to hear a higher pitched voice trying to get her sister's attention.

"Is that Weiss?" Yang asked mischievously.

"Yes. And no, you don't get to talk to her. I have to go though, apparently we are having a meeting for this trip." Ruby's voice dropped down to a whisper "Weiss may be hot, but she is kind of an organization freak."

"Ok, sis. Talk to you later. Call me before you leave. And don't forget, I love you."

"I love you too."

Closing her scroll and shoving it into her pocket, Yang slumped back against the the bench. Searching for a job for the last three weeks without any luck was starting to wear on her. If she didn't have a sister to take care of then she would be taking this easier. But she did have a sister to take care of, and one she cared for deeply. Leaning forward, she buried her face in her hands and felt like screaming. She almost did too, until a small noise interrupted her thoughts of self-pity.

Looking up she tried to discern the source of the noise until she felt pressure against one of her legs. Shifting her gaze to the ground by her legs, she saw a sleek black cat rubbing up against her leg.

"Hi there." Yang said softly to the cat. "Enjoying yourself?"

The cat sat down and stared back at her, giving another soft meow.

"I will take that as a yes."

The cat didn't appear to be skittish, and the state of its fur would suggest that someone was taking care of it, but it wasn't wearing a collar. Moving slowly, Yang slipped her hands underneath the cat and picked it up so she could inspect it. The cat instantly nuzzled into her clothing and gave a soft purr. Sitting there petting the animal definitely made Yang feel better about herself. Maybe getting a pet would help her feel better and it would definitely help make her apartment feel more homey. After a few more minutes of holding the cat, she felt her stomach grumble.

Giving one last look at the cat laying in her lap she carefully picked it up and set it back down on the ground.

"Whelp, see you around." Yang wished the cat a farewell, feeling slightly silly as she did so.

Walking out of the park, she quickly made her way back to her apartment. With the thoughts of what she wanted to make for dinner filling her head, and the sound of her heels clicking off the sidewalk filling her ears, she managed to ignore the world around her. Well, she was almost successful with drowning the world out, but a small sound broke through.

Whirling around she spotted the cat again as it came trotting up to her, its amber eyes sustaining direct contact as it approached. Sighing, she turned back towards her original destination and continued to walk. Upon reaching the door to her apartment she hesitated in pulling her keys out of her pocket. It was silent around her which, while expected, was slightly disheartening. Looking back the way she came, Yang tried to locate the cat that she was sure was following her. Unable to locate the black furball, she returned her focus to unlocking her door. As she put her keys in the lock she felt something make contact with and grab her upper leg. Flashing her gaze downwards she managed to suppress the scream that was clawing its up her throat. The cat was stretching upwards and kneading the side of her leg with its paws.

"Keep the paws out of the skirt, bub." She commented dryly as she put her hand back on the key that was still in her door's lock.

With her actions the cat stopped its activity and moved to sit right in front of the door, staring directly into the edge that would open first.

"Fine." Yang uttered sarcastically as she rolled her eyes. "Why don't you join me for dinner."

With that she opened the door and the cat strolled in as though it owned the place.

* * *

Yang sat on her couch rewatching a season of one her favorite shows. It was based in an alternate version of Remnant and mostly took place in her home city of Vale and the surrounding area. It was a great show, but so far there were only three seasons of it out and the last season took a dark turn in the last half. She felt like some of the characters deaths existed merely to artificially hype up the new tone of the show and cheaply force character development on the lead character. Still, she couldn't complain as the show was still all around a great show but, in the season finale, the writers seemed to go out of their way to screw all the main characters over.

Reaching her hand over she started to pet the cat that currently resided in her lap. The cat turned its head to idly stare up at Yang with its amber eyes.

"You'd never leave me like that, would you, Shadow?" She casually asked the animal.

The cat merely laid its head back down and started purring softly. She shook her head, letting her hair whip around, and realized that she was already turning into a crazy old cat lady at the age of 25. In the last week she learned several things about her new feline friend. After a few days of running errands and job hunting the cat would either invariably find her somewhere in the city and follow her around, be waiting by her door when she got home, or paw at the door on some nights to be let in. A few days of that happening in a row led to Yang to putting up lost cat posters around the neighborhoods that she had ran into the cat. When she didn't receive a call from anyone claiming the animal, she did the only sensible thing she could think of; she installed a cat door in her apartment.

It was nice being able to come home to an apartment that wasn't always empty. She didn't have to spend much money on the furball either, as it rarely ate. Whether it was a proficient hunter, or it was stealing food from other cats, she didn't care. It would only eat on nights that Yang was making fish, then the animal would pester her nonstop.

Shifting the cat from her lap onto the section of the couch next to her, Yang got up and stretched. It has been almost six weeks now and she still hadn't landed a new job yet. She was starting to get desperate and was considering starting part time work somewhere to help her cover the bills. She ruminated over her problems with her newfound pet, who seemed to be a surprisingly good listener. If this trend of unemployment were to continue, she would have to get a roommate to help stretch her savings out until she could find a new job. Though, she did receive her severance package in the mail and, if she made some sacrifices, she would be able to make her money last until Ruby got back from her trip. If she did that maybe she could find a job in Atlas and then maybe Ruby and her could get an apartment together.

Desiring to clear her head, Yang threw on a jacket and pair of shoes, before grabbing her keys and heading out the door. She didn't know where she was headed. It was almost midnight, thus her options were going to be limited, but there was a bar a few blocks down from her apartment. Due to her state of mind, she wasn't paying attention to where she was walking, and when she looked up she noticed that she had taken a wrong turn somewhere. She was about to turn around to retrace her steps when she noticed a coffee shop across the road. Shivering slightly, she decided to drop into the coffee shop for something warm to drink and hope that the atmosphere was quiet enough to sort through her thoughts.

Luck seemed to be with her for the first time in weeks as there was only one other customer present and two baristas behind the counter, so it should be quiet enough. Ordering a mocha from and giving her name to the barista behind the cash register, she moved to an open table in the back of the coffee shop. Retreating into her own thoughts she passed the time until her coffee was prepared. Keeping her ears peeled for her name she was surprised when she heard footsteps approaching her table and looked up just in time to see a figure slide into the chair across from her and set two coffees down.

To her surprise, the person sitting across from her was the barista that was cleaning one of the machines when she walked into the coffee shop. As Yang took in her appearance, she took stock of the unusual hair coloration of the girl, it was somewhere between orange and pink with two blue highlights in the short bangs. The rest of the girl's hair was gathered into twin tails. Her teal eyes twinkled in the low lighting of the lamps above them.

"Hiya." The girl gave her a slightly lopsided smile. "My name's Neon!"

"Uh, hello." Yang replied in a somber fashion.

* * *

 **So this is gonna be a thing. Stay tuned and remember to fav, follow, and review. The cats love it.**


	2. The Plot, Like The Risotto, Thickens

**Author's Note: With no adieu, Part 2!  
** **Sorry, been itching to rhyme something all day.**

* * *

"So what's your name?" The excitable girl inquired, her eyes continued to gleam in the low light of the coffee shop.

"To be honest, I came here to be alone with my thoughts." Yang replied, but the there was something about the girls smile that made her reconsider. "But, my name is Yang, Yang Xiao Long."

"Thanks!" Neon chirped back. "I saw you come in and I was hoping that you would give your name to the guy working the cash register but he never asked and I wondered how I was going to get your name but then I remembered my shift was ending and I told my coworker to make me a coffee too so I could bring you yours and hopefully you'd talk to me."

Yang watched the girl with slight amusement as she continued to ramble.

"Normally this isn't something I would do, but you looked sad and down on yourself and you're kinda cute and it's a shame for someone like that to look so sad and I am sure you have a wonderful smile and since my shift was over I decided to see if I could make you smile."

"Is that all?" Yang asked as she raised an eyebrow.

"I had more but I realized I was rambling and I do that when I am excited or nervous or flustered or really happy… I am still doing it, huh?"

Yang nodded and picked up the coffee the girl had placed in front of her. Taking a small sip she affirmed that it was both what she ordered and way too hot for her to drink.

"Sorry." Neon bawled out. "I made it hotter than normal that way you would have to stay here longer and I would get more of a chance to talk to you but now I realize that is just kinda creepy and-"

"Neon, it's ok. I think it's kind of endearing, albeit in a slightly awkward way." Yang felt the corner of her mouth start to lift before returning back to a neutral position, but not quite to the scowl she once wore. It had been so long since someone had been able to make her genuinely smile. "So, you know my last name, I think it's only fair I know yours."

The girl shrank back in her chair and Yang discerned a small amount of fear in the girl's eyes as well as a flush of embarrassment on her face. Before she could speak up to change the subject, Neon moved her hands behind her back and mumbled something.

"Promise not to make fun of me?" The words were barely a whisper, but the weight they carried wasn't lost on the blonde.

"Of course I won't." Yang was flabbergasted.

Slowly taking her hands out from behind her back, Neon held something up for Yang to see. "My last name is Katt."

Stunned for a second, Yang thoughts raced to analyze the situation. The girl was holding something furry in her right hand that trailed out of her hand and wound around behind her back.

"You have a tail!" Yang tried to suppress herself. "You're a faunus! A cat faunus!"

"Yes." The girl looked dejected and shifted her gaze downwards while letting go of her tail and allowing it to flick freely.

"You're adorable!" Yang squeed. "I could hug you right now. Can I hug you right now?"

"Uh, yes?" Neon answered nervously as she stood up from her chair.

Yang decided that she was not having any of that. Finally having the first grin on her face that she had worn in over a month, she shot out of her chair and bounded around the side of the table. It was at this moment that she realized how small the other girl was. Either through winning the genetic lottery, or just by sheer luck of eating the right foods as a child, Yang towered at about six foot tall. Her habits of exercise lent her to being fairly muscular thus heavier than the average girl her height. But, as she approached Neon, she saw that lack of heeled footwear, and that her head didn't even reach her chin. The faunus had to be at least a foot shorter than her! Deciding to make it a proper hug, and wanting to avoid squashing the faunus' head into her chest, Yang looped her arms under Neon's and picked the redhead up in the air. The girl's lithe build made it easy to pick her up and hold her in the warmest hug she could give.

After holding the girl for about a dozen seconds, she set her back down as lightly as possible. "Thanks for making me smile."

Bewildered, Neon replied "I didn't do anything."

"You trusted me not to make fun of you." Yang smiled warmly. "So, what do you like to do for fun?"

Their conversation continued as both girls cheered up. Making their way through their first cups of coffee they placed a second order of, thankfully, decaf coffee. Yang was elated to finally make a new friend while Neon, Neon seemed to have calmed down as she wasn't rambling anymore.

"So." The faunus inquired. "What do you do that lets you be at a coffee shop at 2am on a Wednesday night?"

"Eh." Yang rubbed the back of her head. "I am actually in between jobs right now. I have been applying to engineering firms around here but haven't had any luck. So I am looking for something temporary until I can find a job in my field."

"Oooh!" Neon chirped back. "See that guy that been standing bored at the register? He's Flynt, and apparently his band just had their 'big break' or something like. So his last day is tomorrow. We were looking for someone to replace him, but uh… I hadn't gotten around to making a job posting yet."

"Oh, is this your coffee shop?" Yang eyed the faunus, she seemed to be a little young to own her own business.

"No. But that would be totally cool. I am just the manager. So I could give you a shot!"

"It couldn't hurt. I would be more than happy to try working here, but it would only be until I find a new engineering job."

"Great!" The shorter girl hopped to her feet and ran to the counter where she quickly scribbled something on a piece of paper. Returning in the same exuberant manner, she placed a folded piece of paper on the table in front of Yang.

"So, I gave the website to fill out an application. It's standard practice that the owners require me to do. And, it was nice to meet you, but I have to go, I have class at like 8am and I need at least a few hours of sleep." She paused for a fraction of a second before pouncing on the blonde and giving her a hug. After that she turned tail and ran towards the door. "My number is on there as well and I don't work on Friday night!"

Before Yang could turn in her seat, the girl was gone. Unfolding the note she saw that what Neon had stated was correct. The paper contained both a url address and a scroll number. Taking care to refold the paper and place it securely in her pocket, she took her trash to the garbage can and began her walk back home.

* * *

An unholy groan filled the apartment as Yang sat up in bed and stretched. The noise and movement startled the cat laying on the bed next to her.

"Sorry about that, Shadow." The blonde apologized as she pet the cat to get it to settle down again. "Forgive me?"

Of course the cat would forgive her. Despite the fact that it was gone for most of the time, doing who knows what, the cat was generally very affectionate when it was in her apartment. The little extra warmth the feline provided the few nights that it had actually slept in her room were always welcome.

"I met a friend last night." Shaking her head slowly, she tried to clear some of the sleepiness from her head before continuing to talk. Talking to the cat was a habit she picked up early on and it turned out to be a very effective way for her to organize her thoughts. "And she offered me a job. Which is good, she was nice and I don't mind trying to cement our friendship. But, people like to go out and do things, so I need the money. Plus I think you'd like her, she is a cat faunus."

The cat turned its amber eyes up to meet hers and gave a soft mew.

"No? What, does cats being territorial extend to faunus too?" Sliding out of bed, Yang realized what she just said. "Wow, way to be insensitive, Yang. Try to avoid saying things like that around Neon."

After a quick shower, she got dressed, fixed her hair up into an elaborate braid, and applied her makeup before checking the clock. It was almost noon and she had a job interview with Fall Factories, your local producer of all sorts of consumer motorized vehicles. Though, they also did contract work with various governments and supposedly had bids out to the Atlas government to help make the next model of their combat androids. If she could land a job there, maybe she could be transferred to their Atlas branch and be closer to Ruby.

Noticing that Shadow was no longer present in her apartment she walked over to sit in front of her computer and unfolded the piece of paper she had left by it the night before. Typing in the address that Neon had given her the previous night, she quickly glanced over the application for the coffee shop. It was your standard fare of questions relating to education, job history, drug usage, and criminal history. Her recent experience with applying for so many positions meant that Yang was able to complete the whole thing in just under a quarter of an hour. Closing her laptop, she pulled out her scroll and input the second piece of information from the paper. A smile ghosted her lips as she remembered the girl's friendliness the previous night, the memory of the brief hug they shared deepened it. It had been a long time since she had received a proper hug from someone, and the faunus was a really good hugger. After saving the contact information, she quickly opened the texting app and sent a message.

* _Hey its Yang. I just wanted to let you know that I sent in that application.*_

Setting her scroll down she contemplated what to do next. It was unlikely that the faunus would text her back soon as she was most likely in class or working. Thus, she had some time to spare before she needed to leave for the interview and taking a ride on her motorcycle was out of the question as it would destroy her braid. Glancing to her TV, she felt another pang as she realized that she still hadn't replaced the game console that Mercury had run off with when he left. Still, she could play something on her laptop. It might be aging, but it was built to be a gaming computer. The sound of her scroll vibrating brought her attention back to focus. She picked the device up to read the message that was, in fact, from the faunus.

 _#hey bestie thnks for doin that so quick#_

Yang's brows furrowed at the beginning of the sentence. Either the the girl was really friendly, or Yang made a huge impression on her. There was the option that the girl was being fake, but that didn't seem to be likely.

 _*Bestie huh?*_

 _#forget that hwo is your day going#_

 _*I dont mind. Youre my only friend at the moment.*_

 _#yay :)#_

 _#not yay yu dont have friends but yay im at thetop of the list#_

 _*I figured. As for my day Im trying to decipher some writing in need of spell check.*_

 _#soryy im runing to my next class#_

 _*Alright I will let you be. But let me know if you are up for doing something tomorrow night.*_

 _#for you im free all day#_

 _*Alright. I will cook you dinner at my place. Ill send you the address later. Now get to class!*_

The lack of response gave her the impression that the girl had made it to her class. Though, when Yang had been in school, she had texted constantly through her classes. The fact that Neon didn't respond probably mean that she was far more studious than what she appeared to be. Rechecking her finances, she confirmed that she would have enough money to pay for a while and the money from a part time job should allow her a few more extracurricular activities. Glancing back at the empty spot where her game console once sat, she got some ideas of how she would spend her first paycheck. Before should could plan too much, her scroll alarm beeped at her alerting her that it was time for her to get to her next interview.

Grabbing her keys and purse she walked to the bus stop next to her apartment. The bus arrived soon and she grabbed an empty seat with no one next to her. The office she was heading to was across town and she would most likely drive her motorcycle to work if she got a job there. After a forty minute bus ride, due to the afternoon traffic, she disembarked and walked the last block, arriving almost a whole quarter of an hour early. Once she was inside she checked in with the receptionist and sat down to wait.

All in all, the process was one of the best interviews that the blonde had sat through recently. She even got to meet the CEO of the company, a dark haired woman not much older than her. Soon enough she was on the bus ride back home. Maybe she would go for a ride on her bike when she got back home. Or better yet, she could text Neon and see if she wanted to go for a ride with her. After gingerly stepping off of the bus, she walked through the parking lot and pulled scroll to text the faunus when a sight stopped her. There was a police car in parking lot, and lying on the ground was a piece of yellow metal. Shoving her scroll into her pocket, she ran up to where the squad car was sitting, the report of her heels notifying the officers of her approach.

"Excuse me, ma'am." The lead officer said holding his hand up, signalling her to halt.

"B-but that's my bike!" Yang exclaimed horror as she finally was able to see the full extent of what had happened. The large yellow motorcycle was turned on its side with gouges and scrapes running the visible side while scraps of metal were scattered on the ground near it; she didn't even want the think of what the other side looked like. It was obvious that someone had run their vehicle into it, and it looked like it would be very expensive to repair.

"I apologize, ma'am." The officer lowered his hand. "We just got done filing our report. Would you like us to call a tow truck for you?"

Yang couldn't reply, she could only nod. The police officer signaled his partner before pulling card out of his pocket.

"Here is the information and scroll number for obtaining a police report for insurance purposes."

"T-thanks." Yang muttered back.

The tow truck arrived within a few minutes and Yang filled out the forms with her personal and insurance information as well as the police report number that officers happily provided her with. Once there was nothing left to do, and her precious bike had been hauled away, she ran into her apartment slamming the door behind her and dove onto the couch. To her luck, she wasn't alone. Shadow was nearby and hopped up onto the couch next to her. All Yang could do was cuddle the cat as she cried.

After a another hour of emotional turmoil, the blonde was able to seize control of herself. She knew that she would need to find a way to pay for her bike if she was going to have a job more than a few blocks away from her apartment. That money had to come from somewhere, and she was already on a shoestring budget. While she felt that the interview went well, she didn't want to get her hopes up. Sitting up and looking down the short hallway into the mostly empty extra room that used to house most of her ex's extraneous belongings, she got an idea.

"What do you think, Shadow?" She looked at the cat. "You ok with getting a roommate?"

The cat merely started purring when she started petting it again. Whether or not the cat could actually understand her, she decided to take it as a good sign. Scooping the cat up, she walked over to her computer.

"Alright, Shadow. You get to help me put out an ad for a roommate."

The actual posting of the ad didn't take much time. Figuring out where and how to post it, on the other hand, did. Yang made sure to visit several sites to make sure that she avoided anything sketchy. Eventually she made her decision and wrote her ad, pausing for an extended period of time to edit and reword it while constantly dealing with Shadow's desire to chase the cursor around on the screen.

"Last time you sit on my lap while I am on the computer." Yang groused as she set the cat on the ground. Having none of that, it jumped back up onto the table and continued to watch the mouse's movements in rapt attention.

"It isn't a real mouse you know." Yang joked and set the cat on floor again.

The cat fluffed its tail, seemingly in indignation for strolling out the cat door without looking back. Sighing, Yang focused on the ad again and double checked that everything was in order before hitting post. Now it was time to sit back and wait for someone to contact her. Within a few seconds her scroll buzzed, causing her to jump. No one could have responded that quickly, though it could be a confirmation email. What she saw when looked at the phone though made her smile, it was a text from Neon. Then the realization hit her, why was she looking online when she could asked Neon to be her roommate?

 _#sup bestie#_

 _*Not much. I was looking for a roommate. You interested?*_

 _#sorry i am contracted to a dorm room for this term#_

 _*Cant you get out of it?_

 _#i would love to but i cant afford the contract termination fees#_

That certainly put a damper on her brief glimmer of hope, but there was still the issue of dinner the next day.

 _*So. Dinner tomorrow? At my place? Maybe a movie or something afterwards?*_

 _#i would love to send me the address and what time you want me there#_

Double checking her address on a piece of mail, she sent both to her friend before making her way over to the TV and turning it on. Picking a show randomly from her list of favorites, she settled in and continued to text Neon until the girl announced that she had to go work. Before saying goodbye, she promised Yang to put her information into the system so she could be hired and bring the paperwork with her on Friday when she came over for dinner. With Shadow being gone, most likely until sometime tomorrow, and Neon at work and unavailable to text she felt oddly alone in her apartment. She had people who cared about again and she missed them. Letting the weight from everything that had happened that day come crashing down on her, she decided to get some extra sleep. It would give her more time tomorrow to make her apartment presentable.

* * *

Today was the day! Yang danced around her apartment while she made sure to clean everything. Clad in long, baggy athletic shorts and sports bra, she had her music blaring loudly through her TV's sound system. Normally, she wouldn't go through this kind of effort for just having a friend over, but Neon seemed special. Plus, she wanted to make a great impression on her so the girl would enjoy spending time at her place.

Having woken up to a phone call from her insurance company about her motorcycle, and the ridiculous deductible for the repairs it required, was not the best way to start her morning but she recovered. Everything was going well, the place was almost spotlessly clean, she had risotto simmering on the stove and a filet of pesto salmon baking in the oven, all that was left was to get changed and set the table. Getting ready to wipe the table down to perform the last item on the list, she was interrupted by a knock on the door that she barely heard over her rambunctious music. Grabbing the remote, she turned the noise down to a more tolerable level before unlocking the door and opening it.

"Hi!" Neon greeted her with a giant smile on her face.

"Neon!" Yang yelped in surprise. Suddenly aware of how underdressed she was, she retreated behind the door. "Come in."

"Thanks, bestie!" Neon said as she walked in.

The first thing that Yang noticed was that she wasn't wearing shoes, only wearing socks. It was a mystery that was quickly solved when the girl placed a pair of roller skates inside the door. Turning to Yang she leapt forward and gave her a tight hug. The apparel that Yang was clad in felt less awkward as she noticed the faunus was wearing tall socks and a very short skirt over a pair of spandex short with a loose tank top that revealed the black sports bra underneath.

"Sorry for being her so early I got excited and I had nothing to do at home and decided that I would rather see you then do homework and I am dressed like this because I was rollerblading I totally brought extra clothes with me that are much nicer but I need to take a shower first if that ok with you and-"

"It's ok, Neon." Yang cut the girl short. While she was incredibly cute while rambling, Yang remembered that it was a sign of her being nervous and sought to soothe her worries. "You surprised me. You can use the main bathroom, it's the first door on the right."

"Oooooohhhh, thank you so much." She chirped back, unslinging the small bag that she carried on her shoulders. "Be right back."

Taking her absence as an opportunity, Yang moved to her own bathroom with the intent of taking her own quick shower. Turning the tap on, she quickly stripping her clothes off and stepped into the still cold water. Doing the best she could to avoid getting her hair wet, she quickly scrubbed her body down, removing the sweat and cleaning chemicals that she had accumulated during the first part of the day. After only a few minutes she stepped out and toweled herself off before dressing in long tunic shirt with a pair of leggings under them. Checking herself once over in the mirror, she applied a small amount of dry shampoo to the area right above her scalp and made her way back to the living room.

Neon was already standing in the hallway. Yang realized how pretty the girl was now that she could see her stand still in proper light. She had her hair down for the first time and her lithe frame was highlighted by the matching crop top and floor length skirt that she wore.

"You own a cat?" She inquired pointing to the living room, her tail flicking back and forth.

Walking past her, Yang's arm brushed Neon's, and the smaller girl grabbed her arm. Yang saw Shadow sitting in the middle of the living room, staring intently at the newcomer.

"Oh, yeah." Yang smiled at her friend. "Hence the cat door."

"Right…" Neon trailed off.

"What? Don't like cats?"

Neon shook her head. "Not really."

"Well don't worry about Shadow." Yang strode forward to pick the cat up. "He wouldn't hurt a fly."

"That's a girl cat, Yang."

"Oh." Yang paused before walking back to Neon holding the cat out. "How can you tell?"

She shrugged. "I just can."

Neon did not look happy about holding the cat and, likewise, Shadow did not seem to be keen on being held by the girl.

"Come on you two." Yang forced the cat into Neon's hands. "If you're going to be here need to get along."

It worked, at least for a little bit. After almost a minute had passed the cat gave both of them what could only be described as an exasperated glare and jumped from the girl's arms only to bolt out of the door.

"Well that was a thing." Yang commented as she watched Shadow bolt away before grabbing Neon's hand and pulling her into the kitchen. "Dinner should be just about ready."

As if some divine force was guiding the events of that day, the oven beeped right as the blonde finished talking. Moving with all the grace and speed that she could muster, Yang pulled the fish out of the oven and turn both it and the stove off, while turning off the music still playing from the sound system. After that she quickly retrieved all of the dishware, cutlery, napkins, and placemats, setting them on adjacent corners of her small four person table. Turning around to inform Neon that she could dish up her food and sit down, she was surprised to see the small girl missing.

"Neon?" She called out.

"One sec, bestie!" Neon called back from down the hall before she reappeared, walking around the corner with her hands behind her back. "I got this for you."

She took her hands out from behind her back and in them she held a fire lily.

"I got this for you." She mumbled.

"Thanks!" Yang gasped in response. "It's beautiful!"

"It reminded me of you." The mumbling continued as Neon handed the flower to the taller girl who promptly placed it in a glass of water.

"Oh, it's been so long since someone has done something so thoughtful for me!" Yang celebrated, doing a small dance as she brought the flower to the table and made it the centerpiece. Returning the Neon, she gave her a warm hug. "Now dish up before the food gets cold."

"Ok!" The girl seemed more excited now that Yang had accepted her gift, though it brought the question of why she was so nervous about it.

As they sat down for dinner they ate in a pleasant silence for a few minuted before Yang spoke up, prompting about Neon's studies. Through that she learned, and was quite surprised, that Neon was a science major working on getting her degree in biochemistry. She was left at an orphanage as a child, hence her unusual last name, and because of that she worked as much as she could once she graduated high school. Wanting to avoid debt from college, the work caused her to stretch out for a longer period of time, and meant that she was now a twenty-two year old junior still working on her first degree. Yang in turn shared her latest interview story with the other girl and what had happened to her motorcycle. After some tears were shed and hugs were given, Yang promised to give Neon a ride on it when it got fixed. Once dinner reached its conclusion, they debated what movie to watch afterwards.

"Whatever you want, bestie!" Neon announced, before grabbing and wetting her napkin and moving her hands towards Yang's face. "One sec, you gots some food on your face."

The blonde leaned towards her friend and allowed her hand to caress one cheek as the cool napkin wiped the other cheek off.

"There." The faunus smiled, a dash of pink dusted her cheeks.

"Thanks!" Yang smiled back, returning to her previous position. "So, I'm thinking something classic, how about The Lion King?"

"Works for me!" The excited faunus got up and tried to grab her plate.

"Nah." Yang placed her hand on the girl's shoulder and pulled her towards the couch. "I will take care of all that after the movie."

Yang dug through the entertainment console under the TV until she found the movie she was looking for. Placing it in the DvD player, she turned the lights off and plopped down on the couch. After she got situated, Neon moved to sit right next to her so their shoulders were brushing. The faunus had her tail resting in her lap and she was idly stroking it with her hands.

"Man, I should gotten some candy or something." The blonde complained as the movie started playing through the intro sequence.

"It's fine." Neon assured her, leaning slightly closer. "I am still full from that delicious dinner you cooked."

With that the movie started to play and the faunus scooched slightly close to the blonde to where she could now feel the tip of Neon's tall flicking against her arm. It tickled slightly and made her smile. As the movie progressed, she felt the redhead leaning closer and closer to her until the faunus' head rested on her shoulder. Yang didn't give it a second thought, the girl was probably tired from a long week of schoolwork and having to run graveyard or swing shift at the coffee shop. About halfway through the movie, Neon shifted her body to slip her arm around Yang's closest arm so she was effectively cuddling it while her tail wrapped around the wrist of the same arm. The slowed breathing notified the older girl that she had fallen asleep.

Yang was pleased that her new friend felt comfortable enough around her to let herself fall asleep in such close proximity. To be honest, the warmth radiating from her friend and companion's closeness helped comfort Yang too. Letting her sleep while wrapped around her arm, Yang used her free arm to fish her phone out of her pocket and look at it for the first time that day since she started cleaning. Sifting through some emails she had received, one stuck out to her; it was a reply to her posting for a roommate. Reading it quickly, she liked the information presented to her.

The extra light must have woken Neon as girl shifted slightly and spoke up with a soft voice. "What's up, Yang?"

"Oh, I got a reply to my post for a roommate." Flicking through the email again she read some of the contents out loud. "Let's see. Their name is Blake. They are a masters student at the same school you attend. Currently getting their Masters in Applied Economics. Not a huge party person. Clean and tidy. Seems like a winner, yeah?"

"Well, he didn't include his last name, but that is the only red flag for me." Her drowsy voice affirming the blonde's opinion. "But you're the one who will have to live with him."

"I think I can do that." Yang tapped a reply into her phone. "I let him know that I am free tomorrow and Sunday to meet with him."

"Mmm… good."

"Ooohh… I wish he would have included his picture" Yang looked thoughtful before winking at the faunus. "I wonder if he's hot. It would be awesome to live with a hot guy."

Yang was pleased with herself until she looked down and saw the teal eyes staring back at her. The pain and rejection she saw in those two beautiful orbs. Then it hit her like landslide. Giving her phone number, meeting her for dinner, the nervous attitude and the flower, cuddling on the couch, the pained expression she was currently observing.

"OH!" Yang cried out. "Oh, my…"

* * *

 **Eh-heh... That's where I leave you. AND I DON'T FEEL GUILTY!  
(ok, maybe I do.)**

 **Either way, Blake is almost here!**

 **If you liked it let me know with a fav, follow, or review. Reviews are especially helpful because they let me know what I do right, and what I do wrong!**


	3. The Cat Master

**Author's Note: So I wrote most of this yesterday while me and my editor Zelinday were at a friend's wedding. So I am a little fluffed out at the moment. I tried though, and I hope you enjoy.**

 **Also, the previous chapter has been updated with some editing for typos and whatnot. I was in a rush posting the last chapter so it didn't get edited by someone who wasn't me. It got edited now and looks better! Plus two non-consequential sentences got added to the end that just help story flow.**

 **(Psst... Review replies at the bottom)**

* * *

"Neon, please." Yang pleaded as the girl retreated to the far side of the couch.

Yang berated herself for being so careless. How did she miss the signs? Now her friend was curled up against the other arm of the couch with her tail wrapped around her, bawling her eyes out. The sight of smaller girl's pain brought tears to her own eyes.

"I'm sorry, Neon." Yang whimpered as liquid trailed down her cheeks. "I didn't know."

The faunus just continued to sob into her hands, seemingly oblivious to what Yang had said. Moving cautiously, Yang shifted in the couch so she could get increasingly closer to the other girl.

"Neon, please talk to me."

"I-I should h-have k-kno-own." The smaller girl hiccuped as she tried to comply with the blonde's wishes. "I-I was s-so excited when you offered-d to have a date with m-me."

"I was excited to ask you over for dinner too." Yang tried speak in the most soothing voice possible, reaching her hand to gently rub one of Neon's arms. "I was so happy make a friend like you."

"But that's it." Neon stopped hiccuping and it seemed she was trying to control her crying but her body started shaking slightly instead. "You only see me as a friend. Is it because I am a faunus? Or a girl?"

"No no no. Heaven's no." Yang gently pulled the smaller girl's hands away from her face and held onto them, giving them a slight squeeze. "You being a faunus or a girl has nothing to do with this. Look, I say things from time to time without thinking. You gave me all the signs and I missed them. I made that stupid, shallow joke because I just assumed you were straight. Just… just give me a chance and look at me."

After a light sniff the faunus responded and turned her head up until teal met amethyst. Despite the puffy eyes and smeared makeup the girl still retained the beauty that Yang had noticed earlier that day. Freeing her hands, the blonde gently wiped the tears and excess makeup off of the redhead's face, before cupping her cheeks and giving her a light kiss on the nose.

"There, there." Yang continued to soothe the faunus, pulling her forward into a hug. "See, we're ok. We're going to be fine."

The faunus nestled her face into the crook of the blonde's neck for a few minutes as the hiccups returned, albeit much lighter and more infrequent this time. Finally, as the hiccups died down, Neon pulled her head back. Staying in the taller girl's embrace, she used her own hands to return the favor and wipe the remaining tears from the blonde's face.

"So." Neon finally spoke up in a composed voice. "Where do we stand?"

"Well, I like where things are going." Yang joked back and gave a smile that Neon thankfully returned. "Honestly, I didn't give myself a chance to think about it. I didn't want to get my hopes up for nothing."

"Mmm." Neon hummed back as she laid her head back down in the crook of her friend neck. "What about now?"

"I have no objections as to seeing where this goes." Yang removed one of her hands from the embrace in which she held the smaller girl and used it to start running her fingers through the faunus' mane of orange hair.

"How romantic." Neon murmured gently, shifting into the blonde's embrace.

Yang giggled. "I can be when I try."

Feeling more comfortable and warmed again by her companion's presence, Yang relaxed on the couch. She hadn't been looking for a potential relationship, but it seemed to find her anyways. Trying to turn her focus onto the last part of the movie, she was distracted by warm air from the slow breaths of the faunus. The last thing she felt before she slowly dozed off was Neon's tail wrapping it's way around her leg.

The sound of birds chirping outside the windows slowly roused the blonde from her sleep. The first thing she noticed was that she had fallen asleep on the couch with Neon. Neon had moved so she was now curled in a ball half on and half off of the blonde's lap, but her tail was still firmly wrapped around Yang's leg. The whole scene was very endearing.

Picking her scroll up from where she had dropped it on the couch the previous night, she turned it on to check the time. It was only a smidge past nine in the morning. Tapping the camera app, she took a few pictures of her and Neon from various angles before saving her favorite as her home screen image and texting a few of them to Neon. As she closed her scroll she felt it vibrate. Quickly reopening it she saw a new message from Blake. Apparently he was going to be in the area around eleven and wanted to meet at that time. Groaning, she sent him an affirmative response and braced herself for what she had to do next.

She didn't want to do it, but she had to. She let out a slight sigh before lightly tracing her fingers nails across Neon's cheek.

"Neon." Her words carried on in a tone as sweetly and gently as she could muster. "Time wake up."

"No." The reply was instant.

"Really? Attitude already..." Yang poked the faunus' cheek. "How long have you been awake?"

"Mmm… Maybe about an hour." The faunus sat up slowly, her bleary eyes made her look even more adorable. "What time is it?"

"About nine fifteen." Yang checked her scroll quickly. "And apparently I am meeting Blake here at eleven. That means that I have to clean the place and shower."

"Oh!" Neon attempted to leap off the couch, but with her tail still wrapped around Yang's leg, she came crashing back down onto Yang's lap. "Nya, stupid thing."

Neon looked at Yang sheepishly while her tail loosened its grip on the leg it was attached to and she then promptly attempted to jump off the couch again. This time she was successful.

"Did you just say what I thought you said?" Yang asked incredulously.

"Uhhh… no?" Her face turning bright red. "You weren't supposed to hear that. And sorry about my tail, sometimes I think it has a mind of its own. It tends to gravitate things that are warm, or that I like."

"I'm glad I heard that, it was absolutely adorable!" Yang stood before hugging the smaller girl. "And don't worry about the tail thing. I take it as a compliment."

"Good." Neon looked incredibly relieved. "It's, uh, bothered other people I have tried to date before so I didn't want you to be weirded out or anything but I didn't think you would be and I am rambling again would you like help cleaning?"

"Only if you want to." Yang replied and the faunus dashed into the kitchen and started to pick up the plates.

The next hour was spent cleaning up the remains of dinner from the previous night as well as some spot cleaning on the couch where a few drops of tear-laden mascara had dried. Once finished, Yang retrieved an air freshener to help dissipate some of the fish odor that still hung in the air while Neon disappeared to the spare bathroom to retrieve her bag and extra clothing. She returned wearing the same crop top as last night, but sporting a pair of spandex capris.

"You going to stick around and meet the guy?" Yang inquired as the faunus pranced back to where the taller girl was standing.

"Nah." She lept on the blonde, throwing her arms around taller girl's neck and giving her a light kiss on the cheek. "I got some school work to get done."

As quick as she jumped on Yang, Neon let go and dropped back to the ground and slung her bag onto her back before putting on her roller skates.

"Alright, have fun." Yang reply contained more than just a hint of sarcasm. "Don't miss me too much."

"Oh, I miss you already, bestie." Standing up and rolling over to Yang, Neon gave her another hug. The roller skates helped close considerable the height gap. "I had fun. I look forward to our next date."

"Me too, shorty." Yang opened the door so she could leave. "You better text me when you get the chance."

"You like totes know I will." The faunus called over her shoulder as she exited the apartment and made her way down the sidewalk.

Yang watched her skate away until she turned the corner around the block. Checking her scroll one more time, she saw that she only had about twenty minutes before Blake got there. Time to go shower and make herself presentable. Even with being busy picking her clothes out and getting the shower going, her thoughts still lingered on her evening with Neon.

The younger faunus was normally so energetic and full of life it was impossible not to be attracted to her, romantically or otherwise. She had just never considered the idea of them dating. A big part of that was the fact they had only known each other for a few days. Sure, Yang had always had crushes on girls her whole life, but they always, and invariably, turned out to be straight. Repetitive failure had just made it safer for her to date guys and just assume any girl that showed her the attention to foster a crush was straight and sending off mixed signals. Now though, with the information she now had about her new best friend, she was looking forward to where this relationship was headed.

Another quick shower caused her to skip washing her hair again. Instead, she threw her thick mane into low twintails, partially emulating the hair style Neon wore both times they met, and dressed herself in a pair of jeans and a tank top. Her grumbling stomach caused her to weigh her choices, makeup or food. Food won almost instantly and she shuffled to the kitchen, deciding to make herself a nice tuna sandwich. Part of it was the fact was she thought tuna was delicious, the other part was her hoping that the smell of the tuna would help cover some of the lingering smell from the salmon remains that were left out all night.

She had barely mixed the tuna and mayonnaise together and sliced several pieces of cheese, two for the sandwich and two for eating separately, when she heard a knock on her door.

"One second!" She called out as she closed the gap across the living room to the front door.

A sudden rush of nervous energy flooded her as she reached for the door handle, causing her to fumble with the lock. By the time she got a secure grasp on the deadbolt, and turned it to unlock the door, she had become even more flustered. Instead of helping ease her flustered state, opening the door had the opposite effect. Her ill-fated joke to Neon was partially right, Blake was indeed incredibly hot, but the difference was that instead of being a guy, Blake was very much a girl.

Blakes amber eyes moved over Yang in an investigative manner, as if she were silently inspecting and judging every facet of the blonde's appearance. While taller than the average girl, Blake was still a few inches shorter than Yang. She was wearing a set of simple black pants with knee-high boots and white sleeveless blouse that was just long enough to cover her belt. The last piece of clothing was a long ribbon that was tied into a bow that sat on top of her midnight black hair.

"Uh, hello." Blake's voice was slightly monotone but mature and seemed to fit her well.

"Hi." Yang said, trying to squash the stupid grin that threatened to overtake her face.

"Can I come in?"

Yang realized that she was standing there, gaping at the girl like a moron. Quickly composing herself, she swept her arm back in an exaggerated manner. "Welcome to Casa de Yang."

"That name is subject to change, right?" Blake deadpanned as she stepped into the living room.

"We'll see how this goes." Yang kept grinning as the girl walked past her and into the kitchen.

The brunette continued to walk in as though she lived at the apartment already and sat down at the kitchen table. Yang moved back to the counter where the components to her yet to be completed sandwich lay.

"Sorry. I haven't eaten anything yet." Yang apologized. "You want a sandwich?"

"Tuna?" Blake inquired, but didn't leave room for Yang to reply. "Sure. I'll take one."

Pulling two more pieces of bread out of the wrap, she spun the loaf around and tucked the loose end underneath when she set it back on the counter. As she divvied up the tuna to the two sandwiches she looked up and caught Blake, her amber eyes staring at her with rapt attention, causing Yang to giggle.

"Don't mind me." Yang joked as she sacrificed her extra cheese slices to complete Blake's sandwich. "The way you're staring at me reminds me of my cat, Shadow. It's adorable."

"Ah." Blake intoned as Yang flinched inwardly. Did she really just call her perspective roommate adorable?

"So. Do you have any questions for me?" Blake inquired as Yang plated the sandwiches them and brought them to the table.

Yang took a bite of her sandwich to give her a chance to compose her thoughts, chewing slowly and enjoying the taste she formed a reply. "Not really. If you were being honest on the first message that you sent me, I think we will be compatible roommates. So if you don't mind me asking, what do you do for fun?"

"Well, when I am not working or at school I usually enjoy reading or going on walks through the city." Blake paused, seemingly scrutinizing Yang's face for a reaction. Yang must have done something because the girl continued. "Don't worry. Things like loud music and an energetic roommate don't bother me. The guy I currently live with is like that, running around at all hours of the day, making a ruckus."

"What? How do you know I am not a quiet person?" She sat back and crossed her arms in fake indignation.

"You just seem… like someone who is active." Blake gave a small crooked smile. "Plus it appears you take good care of your body and the sound system hooked up to your TV is a bit larger than necessary."

"Yeah." Yang rubbed the back of her head, blushing slightly at the first part of her statement. "So, I guess that answered question number two. Last one I think before I give you a tour of the place. You said that you are a masters student. If you get along with your roommate, why are you moving after the school term started?"

"Oh, that. Well multiple reasons." Blake's previous smirk disappeared as the girl exuded a small air of worry. "First, my roommate is transferring to a different school. Apparently he has this buddy in Mistral who can get him into their law enforcement program. And…"

The girl seemed to break down, causing Yang to reach over and place her hand on the girl's forearm in an attempt to comfort her.

"Forget I asked. You don't need to tell me if you don't want to."

"No." Blake responded with a bit of bite to her voice, using her free arm to wipe a tear that was forming in the corner of her eye. "You need to know this before you make your decision to let me live with you. It's the guy who lives next to me that is the problem. His name is Adam. We were old childhood friends, but he developed a crush on me that I didn't reciprocate. I just... I couldn't. He didn't take it well and our friendship has deteriorated from there. But he won't leave me alone, he says he just wants to be friends but then he brings flowers to me in the middle of class or bangs on my door at random times in the middle of the night to serenade me.

"With my roommate moving out I don't feel safe there anymore. The previous things were annoying, sure, but with Sun around I didn't have to worry about anything. Adam keeps getting more and more persistent and aggressive about it too, so I just wanted to let you know that he may show up here sometime."

"Ah." Yang unintentionally mimicked the response she got from Blake earlier. "Not a problem. I deal with creeps all the time."

The brunette seemed confused with Yang's lack of a disconcerted response.

"Really?"

"Yup. Finish your sandwich so I can give you a tour of the two or three rooms you haven't seen yet!" Yang commanded with much exuberance. "Then you can let me know what day you want to move in."

After they got done eating, Yang led Blake down the hallway to show her the guest bathroom and bedroom. Unlike Yang's room, which was the master bedroom that had its own attached bathroom, Blake would have to get to her bathroom through the hallway. Yang offered her to pay less than half of the rent due to the difference, and offer that Blake instantly rejected. With that out of the way, they went back to the kitchen and Yang pulled her spare key out from one of the drawers and handed it to Blake as well as informing her of the scroll number. In turn, Blake and Yang agreed that she could move in the next day.

Another hour passed of the girls chatting about various subjects Blake departed, leaving Yang in a good mood. She had a good feeling about having Blake live with her, and it wasn't just because she was easy on the eyes. Idly checking her scroll to see if she had any emails from her most recent string of interviews, she saw that Neon had sent her a message. Reading it quickly she wrote a reply.

 _#Heya bestie#_

 _*Miss me yet?*_

 _#yeeaahhh class is so boring#_

 _*Guess what?*_

 _#wut#_

 _*Blakes actually a girl. And shes cool. I think youd two get along.*_

 _#pfft ill get along with anyone who treats you right#_

 _*Aww… You know how to make a girl feel special.*_

 _#yup ^^#_

 _#uh so class is out and i got to get to work#_

 _*So you have to leave me again?*_

 _#yeah#_

 _#oh soemthing I forgot you work tomorrow at noon ill be by your place before then and walk you to work#_

 _*Ooh. An escort. I love it. See you tomorrow.*_

 _#ttyl bestie#_

It was still the early afternoon so Yang set her laptop up on her kitchen table and decided to spend the rest of her day playing games on her computer. Most of the time was spent playing a MMORPG that Ruby had gotten her into that they frequently played together, but she hadn't had a chance to check out any of the new content since Ruby left. Figuring it would only be a slight betrayal to play without her little sister, she booted the game up and traveled to the newest planet.

Lost in the game, Yang was surprised to feel something touch her leg. It was Shadow begging to be picked up. Tearing herself away from her computer, she scooped the cat up and placed it on her lap before checking the time on her scroll. It was already eight pm. There was also a message from Blake.

 _^Yang, this is Blake. Is 8am too early for me to move my stuff in? Due to Adam and Sun's schedules, this would be the best time for me.^_

 _*Anytime is fine. You have a key now so whenever works best for you.*_

Shadow looked impatiently at the hands that were typing the message into the scroll instead of petting her, before mewling softly.

"Fine." Yang groaned, setting her scroll down and petting the cat.

Deciding that she deserved to be lazy, Yang threw some frozen mini tacos into the microwave and started it while she went to her bedroom to change into her PJs. Coming out just as the microwave dinged, she plated the food and headed to the couch where Shadow was already waiting for her.

"So, what is the movie tonight, Shadow?" Yang jokingly asked as she sat down and let the cat snuggle into her side. "Oh, my choice? How thoughtful."

Flicking through the various titles on one of the streaming services she subscribed to, she finally settled on an older movie. Action flicks were her favorite, and this one, set in a dystopian society where emotions were outlawed and laws enforced by badass clerics who used dual handguns, hit all the sweet spots. Starting the movie, Yang munched through her tacos at a fast clip, offering pieces of one of them to the ball of fur lying next to her. By the end of the movie, she was already tired. Sleeping on the couch the previous night meant that she didn't get quality sleep, despite Neon's warm presence. Moving to her bedroom, she was disappointed when Shadow opted to run out the cat door instead of following her. Brushing her teeth and hopping into bed, she tried to settle in so she would be rested for what was looking like a busy day tomorrow.

* * *

Wiping the sweat off her brow, Yang stepped back to admire her, or their, handiwork. At only a few minutes past eight, a compact car, followed by a small pickup truck, rolled up into the parking lot in front of her apartment. Blake jumped out of the car while a blonde man got out of the pickup truck. Yang was surprised to see that the boy had a tail, signifying that he was a faunus. She was surprised to not only have met not one, but two faunus in less than a week, but she controlled it in time to greet them both in a friendly manner. It had taken them only two hours to get everything, including Blake's solid oak bookshelf, into the apartment.

Waving goodbye to Sun, she followed Blake back into the apartment to help shuffle around some of the larger items that Blake owned before making a quick lunch and preparing for work. Neon said she would be there around eleven thirty to walk her to the coffee shop, so she knew she had some time. Or at least she thought she did.

After helping Blake setup and unbox her meager possessions Yang realized she was already running late and rushed to get ready, a trend that she had noticed in her life ever since she met Neon and, now that she knew Blake, it seemed like this trend would only get worse. Showering quickly and washing her hair, she spent most of her remaining time arduously drying it before putting on mascara and a small amount of eyeliner. A knock on the door signified that it was time to leave as Yang managed to shove half a bagel into her mouth and open the door.

"Hey, bestie!" The faunus cheered as she saw Yang, her eyes flicked back past the blonde. "Can I meet your roommate before we go? I think she is just around the corner because I thought I saw her… shadow…"

Neon's voice trailed off as Blake stepped around the corner to greet the girl. Upon seeing her, Neon's tail straightened and the hair on it poofed out instantly. Yang stepped back and noticed that, while Blake was smiling, Neon's wore a look of surprise.

"Come on, Yang." She asserted pulling on the taller girl's arm. "We don't want to be late for work."

"See ya, Blake." Yang called over her shoulder as Neon pulled her out the door.

As they cleared the parking lot Yang stopped to look at her friend. It was easier at the moment because the girl was wearing the roller skates that she seemed to use as her main mode of transportation.

"What was that about? Do you know her?" Yang inquired with an air of concern. "She seemed to bother you."

"It's nothing." Neon gave a large goofy smile. "Like you said, she goes to the same school as me and I was surprised to see someone that I had run into before."

"You sure?"

"Yup!" She chirped, sliding her arm through Yang's and giving her a light kiss on the cheek. "By the way, when I said we were walking to work, I meant you are going to walk and I am going to hold onto your arm while you pull me."

"Fine…" The blonde grumbled back as she started down the sidewalk.

The first day of work wasn't the most difficult that Yang had ever experience. Making coffee and running a register wasn't rocket science after all. Not that Yang knew first hand, as she had never actually worked on a rocket before, but she had helped design airplanes, so she had a good idea. Neon only stuck around for about an hour to help train her as Neon wasn't actually scheduled to work that day. When she left, Yang inquired to where she was off to and merely got the same answer as always, school work. Taking over with her training was a pleasant, older man who made sure to explain everything in detail and answered any questions that she threw his way. After six hours of work, and countless mistakes, Yang finally completed her first shift. The man bid her a good evening and handed her a small roll of money, informing her that it was her share of the tips people had left while she was there and that he was looking forward to seeing her next time their shifts lined up.

Content with the outcome, Yang started walking back to her apartment. As she rounded the corner of the coffee shop, she heard a soft mew come from the ground near her. Yang looked down to see if Shadow had found her out here, since the cat seemed to be able to track her everywhere and show up at random times. Instead she saw a smaller orange cat sitting there staring up at her with giant teal eyes.

"Aren't you adorable!" Yang squealed and leaned down to pet the cat before continuing on her way.

When she got to her door and reached into her pocket to pull her keys out, she felt a bump on the back of her calf. Looking down again, she saw the orange cat had followed her and was currently rubbing its face on her leg.

"Yang, you need to stop petting cats." She scolded herself, as she opened the door and turned and looked back at the cat. "Let me guess, you want in too?"

Without hesitation the cat darted forward into apartment. Yang's reflexes allowed her to scoop the cat up as it tried to run past her. Holding the cat carefully she closed the door behind her.

"I guess I am the freaking cat master." Yang joked to herself.

"You're back. How was work?" Blake's voice floated down the hallway, preceding its owner who appeared around the corner moments later. "Is that your cat?"

"No." Yang admitted. "Not yet at least. My cat is black."

"Ah." Blake responded. "Are you sure it's wise to bring it in here then? Cats tend to be very territorial."

"I don't know." Yang replied as the cat burrowed itself into her arms, snuggling close and emitting a light purr. "But it's so adorable! And it reminds me of Neon. I will put up missing posters tomorrow, but I think I am going to keep it."

"If you want. But you should probably take it to the vet to get it checked out. It probably will need shots or something."

"Good point." Yang thought for a moment. "I should probably take Shadow to the vet too. It will be expensive but I would hate for her to get sick."

"O-oh…" Blake took a small step back and her voice cracked a tiny bit. "If it's both cats than that is going to be expensive. I am sure there they'll be fine."

"Whew." Yang exclaimed. "I thought you were going to push the issue and I really don't have the money for that. How about we watch a movie? I ate before leaving work and I could really use some stress relief right now."

"Yeah, sure." Blake replied as Yang moved to the couch, plopping down with the cat in her lap.

Petting the cat idly while searching for a good movie, Yang looked at her new feline friend. "I think I'll call you Flame."

* * *

 **Mmm... Yang really is a cat master.**

 **For all you who questioned Blake's gender. I have met a ton of dudes named Blake, but I have never met a girl named Blake. So Yang and Neon's confusion comes from the same source.**

 **Dragonsoul1: No! We are calling this ship Catfight, and a Catfight it shall be!**

 **Guest Ollie: So, that was something I did right then? Yeah. Something I did right.**

 **LordNodrogLock648: Sorry about the typos! These things will be handled with more diligence in the future.**

 **Vanitas Lunar: Thanks! I am trying to make this adorable and fluffy to counteract my tendency to write more, uh, angsty stories. As for your other points, oh look something shiny...**


	4. Welcome, To The Thunderdome!

**Author's Note: Hey all! This is being posted a little later then intended. This was supposed to be done Tuesday night, but I was on a hot date for my and my wife's two year anniversary. But you guys have it now!**

 **On a side not, as of his posting I have officially cracked 100k words posted since I started writing in January. In the last six months I could have written a novel but instead I have been writing for you all. And I don't regret it! I hope you all enjoy this next chapter!**

 ** _Be assured that this ship shall be called Catfight, oh reader mine, for you have not studied this chapter yet._**

* * *

The next few weeks went by with a very promising air to them. Yang had gotten a callback for a second interview with Fall Factories and the insurance company called about her motorcycle. Since Yang had attached the police report to prove that her bike was damaged in a hit and run by a vandal who remained uncaught , the uninsured motorist property damage clause meant that the repairs were taken care of quickly and the deductible was waived; she had gotten her bike back two days ago. On top of that, she was enjoying the part time work at the coffee shop that Neon operated. The income allowed her to take small dates with Neon or hang out with Blake somewhere around town.

Her relationship with Neon continued to bud as time went on as did her friendship with Blake. But, due to school work and jobs, she didn't get to see either of them as often as she would have liked. On top of that, both girls seemed to be a little keen on avoiding each other, but neither made a big deal about it. Usually, when Neon would come over, Blake would excuse herself and hole up in her bedroom, citing the need for quiet in order to read or relax. She was rarely alone though, at times when neither of the girls were there with her, one of cats usually kept her company.

Following the same procedure she created when she first found Shadow, Yang made sure to put up missing cat posters around the area she had found Flame. After a week, and no calls claiming the diminutive orange cat, Yang decided that she would be keeping her as well. Flame seemed to be quite happy about the arrangement and, like Shadow, also showed a high level of affection towards the blonde and no one else.

Humming lightly to herself, Yang started to get ready for the day. Neon was supposed to be coming over to hang out and they were going to hang out around the apartment. Yang was hoping that she could persuade Blake to join them for once and try to bond with the redheaded faunus. It would make her life even better if the two of them could spend time with her together. Searching all over for her room for her favorite sweatshirt she continued to get ready for the day. It was an unseasonably cool day outside and that chill permeated the apartment building as the aging heating systems had broken down earlier in the week. Settling for, and donning, a different sweatshirt, Yang made her way out to the living room to await the arrival of her energetic friend. To be honest, Yang didn't quite know where they stood, they were definitely more than friends and shared a few more romantic moments together and were definately dating, but Neon seemed hesitant on pushing the relationship forward at more than a crawl.

Walking into the living room, the blonde found her missing sweatshirt. She had left it in the living room and found it upon her rather attractive roommate.

"Hey, Blakey!" She announced as she flopped down on the couch next to calm girl.

Blake looked up from the book she was currently reading. The neck of the sweatshirt was pulled up over her mouth, and her black tresses obscured most of her face, making it so only her nose and bright amber eyes were visible. As always, Blake was wearing a bow in her hair, though her bow today was orange. She seemed to own dozens of various sizes and colors and rotated them based on her mood and attire.

"Hello, Yang." She casually responded, pulling the sweatshirt down to reveal her mouth. "I hope you don't mind me borrowing your sweatshirt. I got cold and wasn't feeling up to getting one from my room."

"Nah, it's fine." The blonde gave her a goofy smile. "Looks good on you. Oh, you remember that Neon is coming over, right? I really want you to stay out here and try to get along with her."

"For you, I will." Blake responded without hesitation.

Yang knew she could take the other girl at her words. In the past month since Blake had been living there, she had several fellow students over to study for upcoming tests and work on school papers and projects. With every interaction that Yang had observed between Blake and her colleagues, she had noticed one thing; Blake never gave her full attention to people. She was always reading a book or writing something down. But, every time Yang spoke with her, the bookworm would always turn and give her full attention. It was a quiet, and easy to miss gesture, but it made Yang feel special. It was the same way she felt when Neon showered her with her own form of energetic attention. She was happy to have two such good friends, but she desperately wanted them to get along.

"Thanks!" Yang sang back and she leaned over to give her roommate a quick hug. "She should be here soon."

The tall girl leaned back into the couch while Blake went back to reading her book, huddled into the borrowed hoodie. After a few moments of staring at the roof, Yang heard the sound she had been waiting for, footsteps approaching the door before the click of a key being inserted into the lock. Yang lurched to her feet and spread her arms out wide as the door opened and Neon walked in.

"Neon!" The blonde cheered.

"Yang…" The faunus' voice trailed off as her eyes glanced over to where Blake was sitting clad in Yang's hoodie.

Setting her bag down and puffing her cheeks out indignantly, Neon stomped forward to where Yang was standing. Her tail whipped back and forth as she grabbed the front of Yang's sweatshirt with both hands and pulled blonde down to deliver a strong kiss to the lips. After the brief display of romance, she continued her march out of the living room, down the hallway, and into Yang's room where she forcefully shut the door.

"Uh…" Yang rubbed the back of her head nervously. "I should probably go check on her, right?"

Blake merely nodded her head at the blonde and continued to watch with amusement. Yang took several deep breaths and turned to follow Neon when, to her surprise, the bedroom door flew open again and the faunus tramped back through living room before sitting down on the end of the couch opposite of Blake. Instead of the clothes she walked into the room with, she was now wearing a set of Yang's sweatpants and sweatshirt, both many sizes too big for her. The sight of the diminutive girl showing so much attitude while wearing clothes that swallowed her frame was unbelievably cute.

"No." Neon scolded Yang as she moved to hug her. "You don't get a hug until you set that up."

Yang followed the direction that Neon was pointing until she noticed the bag that Neon had set down.

"You keep talking about wanting a gaming console. I was thinking about bringing mine over, but I decided to get you your own." She continued to speak as Yang walked over to inspect the bag.

The taller girl gasped as she opened it up to see several boxes containing the game console, controllers, and a few games; many of which she had played before and was itching to play again.

"I hope you like it. I was worried that you would tell me no so I went and did it anyways but then I realized that I didn't know exactly what games you liked since you only ever mentioned certain titles and not genres so I took a guess and picked up what they had on sale and made sure to get an extra controller so we could play together." Neon rambled on without taking a breath, her attitude changing from her previously disgruntled appearance to a softer demeanor.

"I love it." Yang smiled back as she opened the boxes. "It'll will only take a second to set this up."

"I know!" The small girl responded cheerfully. "With the two controllers, I made sure to get games that allow for local co-op so we could play together here."

"Actually there are three controllers."

"What?"

"Yeah, one came in box with the console." Yang happily explained as she set all three controllers on the coffee table in front of the couch. "That means Blake can join us too! You're both ok with that, right?"

"Yeah, sure." Blake answered with an even tone as she set her book down.

"Why not?" Neon sighed shortly afterwards, pulling her legs under her and letting her tail coil in her lap as she watched Yang finish setting up the console, silently cursing her own stupidity.

"Alright!" Yang cheered, turning both the console and TV on before taking her place on the couch between the two other girls. "Dibs on player one!"

"Aww…" Neon teased the taller girl with a playful pout. "But I'm the guest."

"I'll arm wrestle you for it."

"No…" The faunus leaned onto Yang's shoulder. "I'll take player three then, that way I don't have to move."

"What game are we playing?" Blake inquired from the other side of the blonde.

"Oh, an olderish game." Yang replied, turning to look at Blake. "Essentially we play as a group of mercenaries who travel to another world to find a mythical vault that is rumored to be full of treasure. It's a fast pace run-and-gun shooter with fun sense of humor."

Neon began to purr lightly into Yang's shoulder as the opening cinematic played. It wasn't long until they reached character selection. Yang's choice was obvious, there was one character in her mind worth playing and it was the giant meathead who had a proclivity to forgo weapons and punch things to death. After asking a few questions on the character play styles, the two other girls chose their characters without much argument.

Normally, when Yang tried to play with any of her, or Ruby's, friends back in Vale there was always a disagreement over who got to play the one female character in the game and whether or not it was ok to have multiple players of one character. But, thankfully, Blake chose the sniper character instead, while Neon chose the speedy plane-shifting girl. Everything started off smoothly and Yang had high hopes that her two friends would get along, but it didn't last long.

"Don't take all the health packs! I needed that!"

"Why didn't you help me up? I was down right next to you!"

"Hey! That sniper rifle should have been mine, I'm the sniper."

"Could you not shoot the explosive barrels next to me?"

"You need to share the loot with all of us!"

Yang gripped her controller in increasing frustration and the two other girls started making more and more aggravated snips at each other.

"That's enough." Yang growled, pausing the game and slamming her controller down on the table in front of her. "You two need to get along."

"Not my fault cats are territorial." Blake quipped in an annoyed tone, crossing her arms.

"Blake!" The engineer gasped at her roommates callous statement. "That was uncalled for."

"It's fine, Yang." The faunus place her hand on her girlfriend's arm and smiled at the concerned look she received. "No really, it is. Blake, why don't you take off your bow?"

"No." Blake's eyes hardened.

"Come on, Blakey." Neon sneered lightly. "I am just trying to help you out."

"I don't need your help."

"Ok…"

The lack of continued response from Neon concerned Yang as she usually wasn't one to back down from an argument with other people. Then she saw it. Neon coiled up like a spring, looking like Flame did when she teased the cat with a laser pointer. Yang tried to grab the girl before she could do anything drastic, but she was too slow. Neon sprung over Yang's lap and landed on top of Blake.

"Give me your bow!" She hissed as she wrestled with the taller girl.

Yang was torn at what to do next. Her girlfriend and roommate were fighting but, at the same time, her camera capable scroll was just right over there within easy reach. Since both girls were wearing sweatshirts too large for them, the sleeves kept falling down over their hands, making it difficult for either girl to achieve victory. Snatching her scroll up off the coffee table, Yang made sure to get a few choice photos of the altercation before deciding to break it up.

"Come on, bestie." Yang coaxed as she put her arms around Neon's waist and lifted her up off the bookworm.

"I almost had the bow!" She protested, hanging limply in Yang's arms like a kitten being held by its mother.

"Mmhhmm. Sure you did." Yang carried the petite girl over towards the front door before setting her down. "Get your shoes on, we're going for a ride on Bumblebee."

"Yay!"

* * *

Yang flipped idly through her phone while she mixed some tuna and mayonnaise together. Reviewing the pictures she took a almost a week ago of the wrestling match between Neon and Blake, she tried to pick out her favorite one. Since then, it had been impossible to get the two girls to be in the same room together. A mewl at her feet broke her from her thoughts and caused her to inspect the noise; it was Shadow, she smelt the tuna.

Getting a small plate, Yang put some of the fish mixture on it before placing it on the ground. Shadow approached it carefully and sniffed it. Nudging some pieces around, the cat started picking out the pieces with the least amount of mayonnaise on it.

"Trying to watch your figure, huh?" She tried to joke with the cat but, as always, her joke fell on deaf ears.

The cat lazily picked through the tuna until she was satisfied that all of the dry pieces were gone. Rubbing against her owner's leg the cat sauntered out of the kitchen and down the hallway. As one cat left, Yang's ears picked up the telltale squeak of the cat door opening, announcing the arrival of her other cat, Flame.

" _Tk tk tk_ , here kitty." Yang called out drawing the smaller orange cat's attention to the plate of leftover tuna.

The feline rushed over to the food and began to eat it without complaint. Shadow decided to come back at this moment and Blake's warning about cats being territorial popped back into her head as a loud yowl assaulted her ear. In a flash, both cats pounced at each other and began to bat each other with their paws while hissing erratically.

"Hey!" Yang yelled, but the cats remained unfazed, continuing their fight.

"Hey!" She yelled again, this time throwing a dish towel at the two cats.

The impact of the towel caused both feline's to scamper away from each other before turning their gaze towards their owner.

"You two need to behave and get along. I already have to deal with my two best friends not liking each other and I really don't have the patience for this!"

Feeling silly for yelling at her cats, Yang quickly picked out some extra pieces of tuna that had minimal mayonnaise on them and put them on a second plate. Sitting down next to the first plate, she placed the second plate on the opposite side of her body. Both cats slowly slinked towards the side with their preferred preparation and started eating again.

"See. You guys can share." Yang chided as she started petting both animals.

That gave her an idea, a homemade dinner would be the perfect way to get her friends talking to each other.

* * *

Yang bustled around her kitchen trying to get everything prepared in time for her roommate and girlfriend's arrival. Today was one of the days they were both out, Blake at work and Neon at class. They both were supposed to get back around the same time. Not that she intended to deceive either of them, but she may have neglected to tell either of them that the other one would be present.

She was pulling out all the stops for this dinner. Despite both of her friends drastically different personalities and appearance, they both had very similar tastes in food. Getting the specific ingredients, she settled on making phyllo-wrapped halibut, asparagus, and proscuitto shrimp. Preparing the phyllo dough early on in the morning, she made sure to pull the dough out of the refrigerator about an before preparing the fish and shrimp. Now as the as the girls would be back in a few minutes, she was happy to hear the oven beep, notifying her that the timer was done. Pulling out the main dish she saw that the asparagus and shrimp would require a few more minutes before they were done.

The dishes didn't exactly go together, but they would make her girls happy and that is what mattered. Covering the fish in foil to keep it warm, she ran back to her bedroom to change from the sweats she was currently wearing and into a pair jeans and blouse. When she was finished, she returned to the main part of the apartment and began to set the table while humming to herself. Apparently, she was caught up in her actions as she was surprised when a pair of arms encircled her waist as well as the pressure on her back between her shoulder blades where Neon was resting her head.

"Hey there, shorty." Yang chided in a soft voice. "I didn't hear you come in."

"That was the plan." She faunus chirped back. "I made sure to be as quiet as poss-ah! Yang!"

Neon shrieked as her girlfriend quickly twisted around, freeing herself from the embrace, and tossed the smaller girl into the air. Making sure to catch her carefully, Yang then held the girl in a bridal hold.

"Payback." The blonde smirked before putting her girlfriend back down on the ground.

"Nyeh." Neon retorted.

"You make such pathetically cute noises." Yang continued to look smug. "Help me finish setting the table, we need three places."

"Does Blake really need to join us?" Neon groaned.

"Yes." Amethyst met teal as Yang's voice took a serious edge. "And you two will try to get along."

"Alright, for you I will try."

"Good!" Yang cheered as she left Neon to finish setting the table. She then proceeded to pull the shrimp and asparagus out of the oven. "I made sure to make a super yummy meal for us to share."

"Smells good." The redhead commented as the scent of the food wafted over to her. "Guess who just got here?"

"Blakey!" Yang called out as the front door opened. "Hurry up! The food is hot and ready."

"Ok, Yang and oh… hello, Neon." The masters student's voice lost a bit of its cheer when she noticed the shorter girl. "Let me just put my bag in my room and I will be right out."

"Did you hear that?" Neon whispered as Blake left the room.

"Yes, but you will be nice. You did try to take her bow last time you saw here."

"Yeah, yeah."

"Go sit. I'll bring the food over."

Neon moved without much argument, taking one of the seats at the table. Yang took her time to portion out the fish and vegetables onto three different plates for the three girls. After several trips, she had moved the food, silverware, a set of glasses, and a pitcher of water to the table, before taking her place at the head. Less than a minute later Blake joined them. Both girls eyed their host expectantly, literally watering in the mouth at the seafood dishes in front of them.

"You don't have to wait for me." Yang smiled as she grabbed her fork to begin eating.

Silence descended as all three of them began to eat and savor the meal in front of them. Even though she didn't particularly care for shrimp or asparagus, Yang was delighted to note that all the food was quite tasty and the other two girls were enjoying it immensely. As they neared the end of dinner the conversation picked up. Awkwardly at first, but as it picked up steam and they started sharing how their days went, and the mood slowly started to become more relaxed.

Then it happened, as they were cleaning the table and kitchen, Blake looked up to see Neon snag one of the extra pieces of fish and gave a small giggle.

"Something funny, Bla _key_?" Neon stressed the final syllable for Yang's nickname for the bookworm.

"It's nothing." She retorted with a light smirk.

"No, no. Tell me, we are supposed to be friends right?"

Blake let out a light sigh, obviously regretting her previous moment of mirth.

"Fine, its just, do you realize that you purr before you take every bite of your food?"

"Blake!" Yang interjected. "This again? You still need to apologize for your last comment."

"It's fine, Yang." Neon cut in before Blake could say anything.

"No, it isn't fine." Yang replied back, her irritation returning. "Why can't you two just get along?"

"Because she is hiding something from you." Neon accused. "You'd understand that if she took her bow off once in awhile."

"Why?" She inquired. "What's so special about the bow?"

"Ask her." Neon pointed to Blake.

"Blake?" Yang turned to her roommate to make her plea. "Could you just take it off real quick so we can get past this?"

"No." Amber eyes narrowed in on the taller girl.

"Why? What's so special about the bow?"

"It's comforting to me."

"Please, Blake."

"Fine." The black-haired girl finally relented before muttering more words under her breath.

Yang didn't catch everything, but it sounded like she said, 'When will you realize I could never say no to you?'

Blake slowly reached up and slowly pulled on one of the free ends of her bow. The ribbon unraveled and detangled from her hair revealing a pair of cat ears. Despite the tense air, Yang had to fight the impulse to gush about how cute they were.

"Blake, your ears are beautiful!" Her first attempt failed, but she took a deep breath and regained her composure. "Why did you try hide that from me?"

"I didn't want to risk our relationship" Blake sighed.

"You should know I wouldn't have a problem with that!" Yang insisted back. "I'm dating a faunus!"

"Just because you are accepting of one, doesn't mean you are ok with every faunus. I hide my ears to avoid the subjugation my people have been exposed to for centuries. And, unlike some people, I have enough self-control to reign in my other faunus traits as well." Blake's ears laid back against her head as she pointed an accusing finger to the smaller faunus standing behind the blonde.

"You're just a coward!" Neon argued. "I do have self-control. But I'm not ashamed of my faunus heritage and show it proudly. At least I can say I have been honest with Yang!"

"You haven't been completely honest with her!"

"I have too!" Neon claimed as her tail flicked in aggravation.

"You have not!" Blake yelled back.

"Are you sure you want to open that box, Shadow?" Neon slapped her hands over her mouth and shrank back as Yang's head whipped around to look at her.

"What did you say?" The tall girl inquired, to which the redhead merely shook her head. Yang turned her head back to the cat-eared faunus to continue her interrogation. "What did she mean by that, Blake?

"Nothing." She responded as her ears started to droop forward, her eyes frantically searching the area behind Yang as though she were looking for an escape route.

"Blake." The engineer growled softly as her frustration started to mount. "I am tired of this crap between you two and I am feeling very betrayed by you both. Now is your chance to come clean."

After moment of silence, Blake made her decision.

"Fine…" She sighed dejectedly before glaring at the other faunus.

What happened next was shocking. Blake hunched over slightly and held her arms out in front of her. In a flurry of motion, the bookworm disappeared, leaving only a pile of clothes on the ground.

"Wait, what just happened?" Yang rubbed her eyes to look again as a small head poked its way out of the clothing. "Is that…?

"Shadow?" Neon finished for her. "Yes."

"I don't… I think…"

After freeing itself from the clothing, black cat quickly scampered down the hallway and turned into the bathroom.

"Where do you think you're going?" Yang recovered and called down the hallway, trying to take a step forward but Neon grabbed her arm and stopped her.

"Just, wait. She is probably changing back. Doing it so quickly is hard on the body." A thud followed by the sound of retching confirmed the short faunus' claim.

The sound of heaving continued for a few more minutes before they heard the toilet flush and sink start to run. Moments later Blake came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her.

"So, you can turn into a cat." The human stated matter-of-factly.

"Yes." Blake responded, avoiding eye contact with her roommate.

"So you let me hold and pet you?"

"Yes."

"And you've jumped into my bed and slept with me without my knowledge."

"I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?" Yang was exasperated. "What gives you the right to do that and think that a simple sorry will fix anything?"

"It's just…" Blake finally lifted her watery gaze to make eye contact. "Please. All faunus have to shapeshift every now and then, and-"

"Wait." Yang interrupted the bookworm to glare at the other faunus. "All faunus shapeshift?"

"Um…" Neon stuttered back. "She did it first! I was just trying to make sure she didn't-"

"You're Flame, aren't you?"

"Yes."

Yang blankly shifted her gaze back and forth between the two people she thought were her friends. The surge of emotion was so overwhelming she only felt numb.

"I… I…" She stammered.

"Yang, please." Neon pleaded gently.

"I… I need to go." She finally made up her mind.

With that, Yang backed towards the apartment entrance to grab her keys before throwing the door open and slamming it behind her, leaving the two faunus standing in their own shame.

* * *

Yang growled to herself as she set down the coffee cup she was washing a little too forcefully and broke the handle off. A drop of blood splashed onto the countertop as a wave of pain rolled up her finger. She was already suffering from her lack of contact with her friends for the last few days, and now she had to go cut herself on a ceramic cup.

Since the reveal of Blake's faunus nature and subsequent discovery of both girl's deceitful behavior, Yang had been avoiding them. She refused to respond to text messages from either of them and whenever she ran into Blake, and sometimes Neon, at her apartment she would immediately lock herself in her bedroom. Luckily, her work schedule hadn't given her a shift with Neon at the coffee shop yet.

She had already broken one of the shop's plates about an hour ago while she was serving a customer and her hostile attitude had gotten her demoted to dishwashing duty for the rest of the day. The unforeseen benefit of that was it gave her plenty of additional time to think about her current situation. The blonde was certain that things would eventually go back to normal and she would be able to forgive the two girls. After all, it didn't really harm her, and they both seemed to care deeply about her. She didn't just want normal though. Her only two friends had constantly been at each other's throats, and that is what made this situation particularly awful.

Washing the cut off before turning the faucet off, Yang paused as she reached for some paper towels. She heard some raised voices coming from the front part of the coffee shop. Grabbing a towel and pressing it to the wound, she hoped it would stop bleeding soon and headed towards the lobby.

"What gives you the right to do something like that, Asshat!" Yang heard as a familiar voice reached her ear. "You heard me! You better start apologizing now!

Coming out from the kitchen, Yang took in the scene. A very upset Neon was standing in the lobby holding her tail with one hand and the other hand clutched, and held her close to, the back part of the jacket belonging to very angry Blake. Lilac eyes darted to the target of the taller faunus' ire; a group of four young men. The one closest to Blake was several inches taller than her and had slicked back dark orange hair and blue eyes, but clearly looked terrified of the shorter girl. His mouth moved as he mumbled something, an action which apparently displeased Blake even more as she marched forward and pulled herself from Neon's tenuous grasp.

"Say it louder!" The normally demure bookworm shouted inches from his face. "Apologize so she can hear you!"

"Ok, ok. I'm sorry, jeez." The man sputtered back.

"Damn right you are!" Blake refused to let up on him. "You can't just go around pulling on people, especially not someone's tail! Get the hell out of here!"

"I'm already going." He finally found his lost confidence as sneered back while he and his friends headed towards the exit. "I wouldn't want to stay in a beast loving place like this anyways."

Ignoring his final taunt, Blake turned around and grabbed Neon's free hand. "Come on. Let's go find Yang."

"I'm right here." Yang called to them from behind the bar.

Blake walked Neon around behind the bar. It was only when they got a few feet away from Yang, and the taller girl opened her arms up, did the small faunus let go of Blake's hand and hugged Yang.

"Why didn't you step in?" Blake admonished the dishwasher.

"I just got out here." The blonde admitted while holding Neon tightly. "Plus it looked like you had things under control."

"Can we talk?"

"I have about an hour left on my shift and, to be honest, I'm still kinda upset with both of you."

"Oh." Blake looked dejected.

"However, it looks like you guys have been working on the whole 'let's be friends' thing. So I am going to take last part of my shift to try to cool off, then I will meet you both back at the apartment, ok? We can talk then."

"I guess that works." The bookworm responded before holding her hand out. "Come on, Neon, let's get you to the apartment. We'll find you an ice pack or some painkillers or something."

Removing herself from Yang's grasp, Neon grabbed Blake's offered hand and allowed herself to be guided out.

"See you at home." The tailed faunus squeaked as they left.

After they were out the door, Yang returned her focus to her job and bussed the table the four jerks had occupied. Her goal for the next hour was to try to calm down and prepare herself for the conversation that was waiting for her at home. To her surprise, the time passed rather quickly and she was feeling quite content when she clocked out. Whistling a small tune as she walked the path home, she started to contemplate what she would like to have for dinner. Maybe she could have a home cooked meal with both of her friends and it would actually end up pleasant this time.

Her hopes were crushed as she closed in on her apartment complex. As she rounded the last corner saw multiple police cars and an ambulance sitting in the parking lot with their lights running. Panicking as she started to make sense of the scene unfolding in front of her. Paramedics rushed a wheeled stretcher to the back of the ambulance, though Yang could not tell who was on it. Fearing for the worst, she sprinted towards her apartment building only to be stopped by a police officer just a few yards away. Disobediently poking her head around the man her eyes widened as she saw something that gripped her heart in an icy grasp. The door to her apartment was flung open and police officers were hurriedly exiting the unit.

* * *

 **Wait, what?**

 **One chapter left! (And maybe an epilogue.) I hope everything turns out well for the girls!**

 **I think I have answered a few questions about the cats and faunus.**

 **Feedback is everything! Leave a fav, follow, or review and let me know what's up!**


	5. Tied In A Bow

**Author's Note: And we're back!**

 **I feel just as bad about leaving you in a cliffhanger and you do for being left in one.**

* * *

"Let me through!" Yang growled at the police officer trying to block her way.

"Sorry ma'am." The officer apologized in an insincere monotone. "I can't let you through."

"I live here!" The blonde insisted, her voice level barely quieter than a shout.

"This is a crime scene." He intoned, ignoring the emotional outburst. "You're going to have to stay ba-."

"Hey!" A yell interrupted the police officer. A man in a standard police issue windbreaker exited her apartment wearing a badge that hung from his neck. "You said you live here, right?"

"Yes! As I was trying-" She attempted to answer.

"Your name is Yang Xiao Long then?"

"Yes! Can I g-"

"Got any ID to prove it?"

"One second…" Yang muttered as she started to dig through her purse with adrenaline fueled hands. She managed to find her ID and presented it to the man. "Here."

He took only a cursory glance before handing it back. "My name's detective Quartz. If you could follow me."

Glaring at the police officer who slowly ambled out of her way, Yang followed the detective towards the door to her apartment. The first scene she saw as she approached the door horrified her. Scattered on the ground were pieces of ceramic and glass. The mess also included the cord and metal frame of the table lamp they came from. Her eyes narrowed in as she saw something else; blood. There was a small pool staining the carpet and droplets in a splatter pattern on the wall that covered a sizeable area.

"Apparently there was an altercation between some faunus." The investigator started to explain, carefully eying the frantic girl as her hand jumped to her mouth. "We don't know exactly what happened yet."

"No…" Yang whimpered.

"When I got here the paramedics were already moving an unidentified redheaded faunus onto their stretcher." The investigator continued his monologue.

"No… no… no…" Yang began to visibly shake.

"The brunette girl claims to live here with you, but we couldn't find her name on file." "We tried to get her to come to the station for questioning, but we ran into some problems."

"Blake! Oh, is she ok? What's wrong? Please tell me she didn't do anything..." Yang snapped making desperate eye contact with the man and grabbing his arm before whimpering again. "...to Neon."

"Neon, huh?" The investigators gave a small eye roll accompanied by a slight sneer. "That must be the other faunus' name, the one causing the problems."

"What did you say?" Yang tightened her grip on the man's arm. "But how is she causing problems? You just said she was removed on a stretcher!"

The man tooka small step back as the grip she had on his arm started to cause pain. The anger that flashed in her eyes warned him to stop beating around the bush.

"Look, it's be better if I show you. If you could be so kind as to take your hand off of me." Yang complied and the man lead the way to the hallways and headed towards the bedrooms. "The faunus in question that was removed was a taller male with horns. I was trying to gauge your reactions to see if you were going to try to conceal information about him, but it's apparent you don't know who he is. These faunus cause enough problems for the police department, I don't need someone trying to cover for them."

"Gee." Yang snarled at him. "I wonder why they won't talk to you. And if you want my cooperation you'd better show them some respect."

"That is obstruction of justice." He barked back.

"No." Her voice cut back with a hard edge. "Lying is obstruction of justice. Not talking to you is well within my rights."

The investigator looked as though he was going to utter a retort, opening his mouth slightly. He then closed it as if he reconsidered his actions. Stopping in front of the doorway, he gestured his arms to the room.

"They're in here with my partner, Ember." He stated. "She's trying to get them to cooperate and let the paramedics take a look at them."

Pushing past the man, Yang entered the master bedroom. Another investigator and a paramedic were crouched in the middle of the room facing the back corner. Huddled in the corner were the two girls she was so desperate to see.

The paramedic attempted to get close to the girls again, but a low-pitched guttural sound hit Yang's ear. The sound grew in intensity as the medical technician got closer and the man slowly stopped and backed up. It was then that Yang realized what the sound was, Neon was growling at the two professionals. She yearned to run to comfort the small faunus.

"Go away, Quartz." Ember ordered, not looking away from the girls in front of her. "You've already done enough damage."

"I'm their friend, this is my apartment." Yang announced her presence. "Let me talk to them."

"Yang." She heard a soft voice carry through the room as Blake's eyes connected with her own.

The investigator moved aside and allowed Yang to thread her way through the room and kneel in front of the two girls, both of which collapsed into her embrace, clutching her clothing with vigor.

"It's ok." She tried to soothe them, gathering them up into a hug and rubbing small circles on their back. "It's going to be fine."

"I'm sorry I broke your lamp." Neon gasped hysterically into Yang's shoulder, causing the taller girl to release a nervous chuckle.

"That's what you're worried about?" Yang cradled the diminutive girl harder. "I am just glad you two are ok."

"I'm sorry…" Neon gave a small choking sob and shifted to latch onto Blake. "I shouldn't be the one in this state."

"It's ok." Blake attempted reassure her despite her own shaky voice. "You were brave when I needed you, it's ok to not be now."

"But I'm not brave." She clutched the other faunus harder. "I was so scared. Scared of what he might do, scared not being able to see Yang again, scared of losing you."

"Me?" Blake gave a surprised smile.

"You were the first person to stand up for me. Back at the coffee shop earlier today, no one's ever done anything like that for me before. I act confident and proudly show my heritage." Neon wiped her eyes with her sleeve. "But it's so hard to look at people's disapproving faces, or ignore their teasing. That wasn't the first time someone has tried to pull on my tail. I always wished that I could hide like you do, but it's so painful to hide a tail. It's one of the reasons I couldn't stand you when we met, you could hide so easily."

"Hey, now." Blake responded and pulled back from the redhead.

Yang was certain that Neon had offended Blake, the last argument they had bubbling to her mind. To their surprise, Blake did something unexpected. She reached up and pulled on the black bow that was in her hair, undoing the knot and freeing her ears underneath.

"This bow is my favorite." Blake explained while Yang inspected the ribbon that she had removed from her hair.

It was the same bow that Blake was wearing when Yang first met her. Blake straightened the fabric before grabbing Neon's wrist. She then tied the ribbon into a bow on the other girl's wrist.

"What are you doing?" Neon inquired

"I want you to have it. As a reminder to stay strong." Blake sighed forlornly. "To be honest, I was jealous of you too. To show your heritage proudly was so infuriating to me because it was something I could never do. I was too much of a… well, you were correct. I was always a coward and tried to hide myself. I was unfair to you and to Yang. I can't, no, I refuse to hide myself anymore. That bow is a symbol of my cowardice, I want it to be a symbol of my support for you now."

"I promise to be there for you too!" Neon lurched forward, hugging the taller faunus.

"Oh! I'm so proud of you both!." Yang piled on top of them, wrapping both of them in her arms.

The moment of catharsis was uplifting, and after a few minutes of embracing, all three girls wore genuine smiles. A gentle cough behind her reminded Yang that Ember and the the paramedic were still in the room.

"Can the medic check you guys out now?" Yang inquired, eliciting a nod from both of the girls.

She waived professional forward and sat back while he asked them a series of questions and checked their eyes for signs of shock or a concussion.

"I still need a statement." Ember stated to the blonde as she watched the affair.

"You'll get one." Yang retorted. "Just, let me ask them about it. What did your partner do?"

"I am not sure." The detective shrugged. "But I will find out. All I know is, I walked in and the redhead was growling and him with her fists pulled back as if she was going to strike him. He has had… incidences before with being accused of biasness against faunus. I am going to make sure that whatever he did will go into his file, and have a discussion with the chief of police as well."

The two women looked over as they sensed a presence move towards them.

"I'm all done." The paramedic grunted as he walked past. "Other than some minor scrapes and bruises, they are both fine."

With him gone, Yang moved back to where the girls were seated.

"So, what happened?" Yang's eyes darted back and forth between the two girls. "And what was up with Investigator Quartz?"

Blake sighed and pulled her knees up to her chest, hugging them in the process.

"Remember that guy I told you I used to be friends with?" She asked with a low voice.

"His name was Adam, right?"

"Yeah. I told you how he would bother me at home and work. When I moved here I didn't tell him where I was going, or that I was even leaving. Apparently he saw me at the coffee shop with Neon when we came to talk to you and decided to follow me home. We had gotten back and Neon went to your room to get something and wasn't there when he knocked. I shouldn't have opened the door, but I thought it was just going to be another time where I was just going to have to tell him to leave.

"When I opened the door he pushed his way inside. He started yelling about me betraying him and running off with some whore. I started yelling back when he tried to choke me me. We fell to the floor and he kept shouting about how I belonged to him. I think that is when Neon came running back from your room. Somehow she managed to get him off of me. My mind when blank, I was more scared than I have ever been. Next thing I remember, Adam was bleeding on the floor and Neon had me on my feet and was pulling me back here."

Blake's eyes flitted to Neon as Yang shifted her gaze as well.

"What did you do?" Yang probed.

Neon looked down at her hands, balling them into fists.

"I heard the shouting. So ran into the living room as fast as possible. I couldn't make sense of what he was saying, but he was on top of Blake. So I kicked him in the ribs as hard as a I could. I think I heard something snap, but he managed to get up anyways and pulled a knife out of his coat." Neon paused and trembled slightly. "He tried to stab me! I didn't want to hurt him but he came after me! I grabbed the lamp next to me and hit him with it. I just wanted him to stop. I didn't even check to see if he would get back up, I grabbed Blake and helped her follow me in here, locked the bedroom door, and called for the police"

Both Blake and Yang moved in to give her another hug.

"You're safe now." Blake crooned. "I'm safe thanks to you."

"So why did you refuse help from the police and medics?" Yang tried to press forward so they could be done with this mess as soon as possible.

"He said we needed to go with him to the station to give a statement." Blake explained as Neon remained quiet. "He said had no record of me living here and he said he would cuff us and force us to go if we didn't comply. I think Neon scared him with her growls. Thankfully, his partner came in. But we weren't quite in the right frame of mind to trust them."

"Thank you for your statements." A voice called over Yang's shoulder and she turned around to see Ember leaving. "If we need anything else, we'll contact you."

As she left she bumped into a uniformed officer who whispered something to her. She turned around and gave a smile.

"Sounds like they are done with the crime scene and the cleaners have already removed the biohazard." Her face softened. "Please try to take care of yourselves tonight. This looks like a fairly cut and dry case of self-defense, so don't worry, he won't be back to bother you."

Silence fell on the bedroom as the three girls looked at each other expectantly. Yang's mind raced to think of a way to help her friends feel better. Getting an idea, she walked over to her dresser and pulled out extra sets of pajamas. Tossing a set to each girl she smirked.

"Put those on." She ordered. "I am going to run out to the kitchen and make some popcorn and hot chocolate. When I get back we are going to have a slumber party and watch movies."

She promptly left the room to get what she needed from the kitchen. Satisfied to see that the apartment was now empty, and the area where the debris and blood had been was clean, she locked the door and moved back to the kitchen to start boiling the water. Tossing a bag of popcorn in the microwave she dug through the cabinets for anything else she could find. She found a few bags of unopened candy and a box of chocolate wedged behind the tea. It was probably Blake's stash, but she promised herself that she would replace it next time she went to the store. Mixing the water with the hot chocolate mix she filled three thermos cups and put lids on them before pouring the popcorn into a bowl. Gathering everything up, she managed to carry all of in one trip to the bedroom.

When she got back, both the faunus were dressed in the oversized pajamas. Their eyes lit up as she walked in and they both jumped up to help her with the goodies. Ordering each of them to pick out a few movies, she made her way to the bathroom to change into her own pajamas. Finally when all that was done, the three of the settled down on Yang's bed. Neon curled up on side of her while Blake rested her head on Yang's other shoulder. The blonde reached for the remote and pressed play so the three of them could enjoy their night.

* * *

Yang smiled as the sound of pattering resounded through the room. Flicking her wrist, she pointed the device in her hand across the room. Small footsteps were heard again as the determined feline chased a little red dot to its new destination. She let out a small giggle as Neon, in her cat form, pounced on the speck of light. The last few days had been going well for her. Neon and Blake were finally getting along and spending time together, even at times where Yang wasn't present.

Today was one of the rare days where none of them had anything to do. She assumed that Blake was still asleep, but couldn't tell because her bedroom door was closed. Yang got woken up relatively early because a little orange cat decided to pounce on her and wanted to play. Dragging herself out of bed, she grabbed an energy drink while she mischievously shone the laser pointer around the room. Neon was more than happy to play with her; pouncing on, scampering after, and stalking the dot.

Tracing the laser across the wall, slightly too high for Neon to reach, she giggled again. Neon instead sat on the floor, staring at the dot and issuing a high-pitch chattering sound. Yang was so enthralled in the game that she didn't notice the other presence in the room.

"Don't be mean." Blake spoke as she scooped Neon up off the floor, her eyes darting to track the laser.

The cat gave an idle swipe in the direction of the red dot as she was lifted past it. Once it was out of sight she snuggled into Blake's arms and started purring. Blake reacted with a small look of apprehension before she started to pet the orange cat.

"This goes against so many habits, but she is too cute to resist." Blake sighed as the teal eyes looked up at her innocently. "Don't look at me like that, you know what you are doing."

Yang sniggered as she realized that Blake's eyes kept snapping back and forth as she tried to focus on Neon and track the laser simultaneously. Moving the dot in a circle on the wall just on the edge of Blake's vision, Yang tried to entice the eared faunus to try to catch it with her hand.

"Yang." Her voice was stern. "If you don't knock that off I will walk over there and bite your hand until you drop that infernal device."

"If I stop will you come over here anyways?" Yang teased her roommate.

"Yes."

The simple answer was all she needed. Putting the laser pointed away, she scooted over to give Blake room to sit. She watched the masters student saunter over still carrying Neon. She wanted a closer look at Blake's ears. She hadn't covered them since the incident with Adam, but Yang hadn't had a chance to look at them all that closely. As the faunus sat next to her she got her chance. They were an endearing feature that fit their owner's personality quite appropriately. They looked soft too, if only she could touch them.

"Please don't." Blake warned, placing her hand on Yang's.

Yang hadn't realized that she had moved her hand towards Blake's ears. Sitting back she tried to control her blush of embarrassment.

"Sorry." The engineer muttered.

"It's fine." Blake traced her fingernails over the back of the previously captive hand. "It's just, I am really protective of them. They are delicate."

"I'm still sorry."

"I know you are." Blake smiled before turning her attention back to the cat purring in her lap, giving Neon a soft poke. "Change back. We need to have that conversation with Yang."

Neon stood up in Blake's lap before stretching. Jumping off, the was a blur of motion and Yang closed her eyes and looked away.

"Neon! Innocent eyes here." She exclaimed.

"Oh, just relax and turn around." Neon pouted back. "I am not indecent."

Yang turn back around and saw that Neon was in fact wearing clothing. She was dressed in gym shorts and a tank with her hair in her customary high twintails.

"Wait. You can transform with clothing?" Yang looked at Blake. "Why didn't you do that last time?"

"Because I was stressed." Blake shrugged. "The more clothing you wear the more energy and focus it takes to turn into your animal form. Most of the time something like spandex is hardly noticeable, but bigger looser clothing can take several minutes of focus and it's pretty tiring."

"Ah…" Yang fell silent for a moment. "Oh, you said that you have to transform occasionally. Why is it a necessity?"

"I don't know why, at least not scientifically." Blake explained. "But if we don't transform into our respective animal forms we begin to feel a bit tired or stressed. With the rate that you drink coffee and energy drinks I am sure you know what caffeine burn out feels likes. It feels like that, but keeps getting worse as time goes by. It won't be fatal, but it definitely makes it hard to function."

"Yup." Neon chirped, stretching again. "Spending time as a kitty then switching back to a person feels like taking a really good nap. It's a shame you can't experience it."

"Nah, but I get to pick you up and cuddle you." Yang teased. "So I call it a wash."

"Pfft. I benefit from that too." Neon smirked. "Being pet feels soooo good. Especially being scratched behind the ears. Blake, you want to trade me for my tail?"

Blake merely rolled her eyes and patted the couch next to her.

"Come on, we're supposed to be talking to Yang."

"Right." The redhead groaned. "Talk about awkward."

"What's awkward?" Yang cocked her head to the side. "What's this about?"

"This conversation might be awkward." Neon looked at her feet. "This is something we need to talk about. It's about you and me and, well, her."

"I don't generally like conversations that start like this." Yang looked suspicious, this was starting to sound like a conversation she had heard before.

"No no no." Neon tried to assure her. "It's not like that I wouldn't break up with you or anything like that there is just some things that we need to talk about and everything would ultimately be up to you and anyways more of this is about me and Blake and previous actions that you may not have thought about."

"Ok, Neon. No need to be nervous" Yang sought to stop her ramble from continuing. "You just took me by surprise."

"Look." Neon made eye contact with her girlfriend. "I know you have probably wondered why I was taking our relationship so slow. I couldn't talk to you about it without giving the whole 'shapeshifting' thing away. From your point of view you had a girlfriend and a pet cat. From my point of view you were being unintentionally affectionate to another person. The thing is, she was here first, and you liked her first. I had hoped that she would go away, then Blake became your roommate. I still hoped that she would give up her pursuit of you and I would still be there for you.

"But then, she turned out to be this really cool person. It was obvious that she still had feelings for you. I never knew for certain, but I am certain that you have feelings for her."

"But I like you too, Neon." Yang interrupted.

"I know." She smiled back. "I never doubted that, I would still fight to hold onto you. In the last few days, Blake and I have hung out a few times and got around to talking, and, uh, we had an idea."

Neon paused as a shade of red dusted her cheeks.

"And that would be?" Yang prompted the younger faunus.

She shook her head and refused to speak.

"Blake?" Yang implored the other girl.

"Traitor." Blake chided the tailed faunus. "Look the day I met you, back in that park, you looked so sad. It looked like you had been rejected by society and you really looked like you could use a friend. I felt for you. That is why I followed you back. I just wanted to comfort you, but even just a small glimpse of you life and who you are just captured my heart. I found myself unable to leave you. When you started dating Neon I felt bad about hiding myself. Everything lined up when you decided to look for a roommate when I was trying to move out of my old place. I hoped that my presence would chase her off, but she turned out to be such a sweet, endearing girl."

Neon emitted a small squeak and her blush deepened. Blake patted her on the leg before continuing.

"Anyways, remember that day in the kitchen where you thought that Neon and I were fighting over a plate of tuna?"

"Yup." Yang popped the 'p'.

"Do you remember what you said to us?"

"Yeah." Yang looked thoughtful and rubbed the back of her head as she thought back. "I said, 'see you guys can sh-'... oh."

"Yeah." Blake was looking at her feet now. "Look, I know this is awkward and you should take some time, ok?"

"Yeah." Yang slowly nodded her head up and down. "I am going to go do some thinking."

Yang got up and made her way to the door. Her normal method of thinking was taking a ride on Bumblebee, but it was low on gas so she decided to make her way to her room instead. Before she could walk out of the living room she felt a tug on her shirt, causing her to halt, but she didn't turn around.

"Look." Neon spoke from behind her. "Since we got over the other stuff, Blake and I get along well. If it makes you feel better, you shouldn't worry about that."

"Alright." Yang responded before closing herself in her room.

Yang threw herself down on to her bed and lost herself in thought about what the two women had just said to her.

Eventually a buzzing noise ripped her from her musings. Grabbing her scroll she noticed that she had quite a few emails that she had received in the last few hours. Checking the time she realized that she had sequestered herself for most of the day, missing lunch, and it was almost dinner time. Opening up her messages she was pleasantly surprised at their contents.

While the first was a message from Fall Factories informing her that they were going with a different candidate, but the next message was from Ozpin R&D. She had interviewed with them over a month ago and hadn't heard anything from them, but the message contained a job offer. She reread it multiple times to make sure, definitely a job offer. If that didn't cause her heart to soar, the next message made her even happier. It was from Ruby! Sent through official channels. Her little sister would be back in Atlas soon, she would have to see if Neon and Blake...

Smiling slightly, she made up her mind. Sending a quick message to both girls, she headed to her shower.

Her good fortune seemed to keep its momentum. Her hair curled perfectly, she got her makeup on without smudging it, and there wasn't a wrinkle to be found on her dress. Checking the time on her scroll she waited by her bedroom door. She had told both girls to get ready and meet her in the living room at six. It was already a few minutes past six, but she wanted to give them a small buffer of time. Taking a deep breath and sorting her thoughts again, she started to count.

Upon reaching sixty, she unlocked her door and headed out to the living room. Neon and Blake were facing each other, clasping each other's hands, and conversing quietly. Letting go of each other's hands, they faced her. Neon and Blake were dressed stunningly. Attired in a skirt and blouse combination and sleek asymmetrical dress, respectively, both girls smiled at her. Yang was happy to see that Blake was still leaving her ears uncovered and was pleased to see that Neon was wearing Blake's bow on her wrist again. Slowly approaching the two of them, Yang leaned down and captured Neon's lips in a quick kiss. Pulling back she saw an expectant look in Neon's eyes. Smirking slightly Yang turned towards Blake. Taking a breath to calm the butterflies that she felt in her stomach, she caressed the taller faunus' cheek with her hand and brought her in for a kiss too.

"Alright, girls." She said as she slid one hand into Neon's hands and the other into Blake's hands. "Let's go have dinner, the right way this time."

* * *

 **There you go that's all! I need to go take a nap and write something really angtsy. So fluffed out.**

 **No more for this story!**

 **None!**

 **Fine... Look, peer pressure is bad. But I guess I can give into it, this time. There will an epilogue, and not a half-assed one either. It won't be here for a bit though. I finished this in time to submit it for the Reddit Moncon, so I will be submitting it and can't edit it until August. You guys can wait that long right? In the meantime, go to the RWBY subreddit, and go read the stories and vote for you favorite!**

 **As always, if you enjoyed this remember to Favorite and Follow, then go leave a review.**

 **I know I enjoyed writing this. Alot more than I thought. This was supposed to be around 10k words, I was way off, hitting around 25k. But it was worth it and I will certainly be write either a sequel or some one-shots.**


	6. In the Club

**Author's Note: Bonus chapter! Kind of. This was part of the original story arc and was cut due to length. But you have it now.**

 **This took longer than intended because of silly things likes vacation. Zelindsay helped me out refining this.**

 **I looked around and apparently I have the only YangxBlakexNeon story on Fanfiction. Someone get out there and write another!**

 **If you enjoy the YangxNeon pairing, read Sunshine & Rain by Weisscreamx. It's a great story. **

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Walking towards her apartment Yang pondered her problem. It wasn't the worst problem in the world, but it was making life a tad bit difficult for her. She had just finished a long day at Ozpin R&D and just wanted some peace of mind, though it seemed her mind had other plans. Things had been going great for the young engineer.

Taking her keys out of her pocket, she paused at the door. She knew Blake would be there since she was working from home that day. Neon worked a morning shift and then had homework, so she would most likely be in the apartment too as she had picked up the habit of doing her homework at Yang and Blake's place. Most likely she would enter to a peaceful and quiet environment and could retreat to her bedroom to contemplate her issue. Drawing the keys from her pocket, she selected the correct one and quickly unlocked her door to walk in. Upon entering her apartment she quickly found her assumptions about her girlfriend's activities to be false as two colored blurs went careening through the living room accompanied by a cacophony of thuds. How two small furballs could cause such a racket was always beyond the engineer.

Blake bolted up and over the couch with Neon in hot pursuit. It was refreshing to see the bookworm playing in her cat form. Due to her past, she still clung to the belief that faunus shouldn't do anything that could be seen as animalistic. However, either the younger faunus' carefree attitude seemed to be rubbing off on her, or Blake ate the last donut in the cupboard and Neon was trying to exact her revenge. Scrambling out from behind the couch, Blake tried to dart back down the hallway but she didn't make it very far. Leaping at the larger cat, Neon reverted to her human form mid-dive and tackled the masters student.

"Gotcha now!" Neon exclaimed as she tried to hold onto the squirming cat. "Show you to take my sunny spot by the window."

The tailed-faunus' victory was short lived as Blake manage to wriggle out of her grip and bolted towards Yang who picked her up.

"Awww…" Neon pouted. "I would've had her if you hadn't shown up."

"And done what with her?" Yang inquired as she moved to sit on the couch, still holding Blake in her arms.

"Uh, tickled her until she learned to not push me out of my spot?"

"I didn't know cats were ticklish." Yang stated as Blake jumped out of her arms.

Transforming back into her human form Blake whirled around to look at the other faunus.

"Hey! I wasn't trying to push you anywhere! I was… uh…" Blake's voice dropped to a low whisper as her face adopted a light pink hue.

"What was that, Blakey?" The engineer inquired as she looped a finger through a belt loop on the jean shorts Blake was wearing, pulling her onto the couch with her.

"I was trying to share, ok?" Blake covered her face with her hands. "I am new to this 'let's be ok with our animal traits' thing. I forgot how much smaller of a cat Neon is and I accidently pushed her off the window sill."

"Heh, that's funny." Yang pulled Blake closer. "But I am sure spazzy over there will forgive you for it."

"Hey!" Neon pouted again her tail swishing back and forth behind her. "I am not a spaz!"

Both girls stared at the energetic girl for a fraction of a second.

"I've seen you just fall off that window sill before." Yang deadpanned.

"That just means I'm a klutz!"

"Who rollerblades everywhere?" Blake quipped.

"I never claimed to be smart!" The small girl protested, giving a playful glare back to the two girls seated on the couch

"Alright." The blonde conceded. "Are you going to put something on and join us over here?

Looking down at herself the rollerskater realized that, unlike Blake, who was wearing jean shorts and a blouse, she was clad in only spandex shorts and a sports bra. Looking back at the older girls she gave a subtle wink and struck a small pose.

"Naw." She chirped as she hopped onto the couch on Yang's other side, stretching out so she was laying down with her head in the taller girl's lap. "I am fine like this. It's a little warm in here anyways."

Now wedged on the couch between the two faunus, Yang gave up on her hopes of thinking her problem over. Turning the TV on she flipped to a random channel that was playing a marathon of older sci-fi shows and settled back onto the couch to enjoy the contact with her girlfriends. Starting idle conversations about their various days, Yang wrapped one arm around Blake and her other hand traced patterns up and down Neon's exposed side, causing her to wiggle and flinch as she hit ticklish spots.

"Oh, you never did answer the question." Yang absentmindedly asked after another twitch from Neon reminded her of it.

"Hmm…?" Blake responded contently as she snuggled deeper into the blonde's side, cat ears twitching towards the sound of Yang's voice.

"Are cats ticklish?" Yang repeated the question. "I know that you two are in your human forms, but what about your cat forms?"

"Yeah." The ravenette responded. "Many traits carry over. If you lightly scratch my ribs with your fingernails in either form it tickles." Amber eyes turned up to meet amethyst as the faunus' mouth twisted into a sly smile. "Or, try rubbing Neon's stomach."

"Wait, what?" Neon's body went stiff as her eyes shot open.

The redhead tried to roll over but Blake reached across Yang to pin her shoulders in place as Yang started to gently rub Neon's stomach.

"No…" Her objection faded quickly as her body went limp and she started to purr, loudly.

"Aw, that's so cute!" Yang squealed as Neon began to rub the side of her face against Blake's arms that were still holding her down.

"Yeah." Blake intoned wistfully as she released the other girl's shoulders. "She is trying to mark me."

Yang paused in her ministrations, receiving a glare from turquoise eyes, to focus on the eared-faunus. Was that jealousy that she heard in Blake's voice, or resentment? Time to try something.

"So, Blake Belladonna." Yang carefully inspected the faunus' face so she could gauge her reaction to the next question. "What does it take to make you purr?"

"Well." Neon flipped over to sit up on her knees and rambled her thoughts. "If she is anything like me, besides my stomach, tender care of her cat features would do it. If you were to rub my tail the right way I wouldn't stop purring for an hour because that feels really good but most people are off put by faunus features or are way too rough on them and that's just painful."

Blake's face grew apprehensive. That meant that Neon was probably spot on, but there were problems with that.

"Don't worry, Blake." Yang reassured her. "I won't try to touch your ears."

"But they're so adorable." Neon squeaked over the human's shoulder.

"Still." Yang interjected. "You-

"It's fine." Blake face adopted a steely resolve.

"Huh?" Both girls responded.

"I know how this conversation is going to go." Black explained. "Neon is going to talk about how she has had her tail pulled on but she still trusts you to be gentle. I am going withdraw and try to hold onto my past issues, and you, Yang, you'll sit there and be as sweet and unbearably understandable as always."

"I don't want you to do this out of obligation."

Blake shook her head, her black tresses swinging freely. "I want you to touch my ears, Yang. I want to feel the trust that Neon has in you."

Thankfully, Neon was quiet and didn't respond to Blake's statement. It brought the problem the blonde was wrestling with earlier back to the front of her mind.

"Are you sure?" Yang, making sure to double check.

A simple nod affirmed her decision. Not waiting for Yang's reaction, Blake grabbed her hands and slowly brought them up to her ears.

Yang let out a nervous chuckle as her fingertips brushed the soft, velvety fur that covered the extra pair of ear. The ears twitched and flicked whenever the engineer's fingers touched them and she tried to pull away but Blake's hands resisted, pulling the blonde's hands back to the cat ears. As her hands made contact again, she started to explore softly. Lightly dragging her nails down the back of the faunus' ears, she started to gently scratch them at the base and slowly moved her hands in small circles, expanding the area she was touching.

The reaction from Blake was near instantaneous. Her hands fell away as her body started to relax. As with Neon, she started to purr quickly. However, unlike the smaller faunus, who started purring loudly from the beginning, Blake's purr started off as a quiet rumble and grew in intensity. But, just as it started, it stopped. The purring tapered off as amber eyes fluttered open and Blake pulled away.

"I didn't do anything wrong, did I?" Yang asked frantically.

"Not at all. It's… that's just enough for now." She smiled at the blonde. "But thank you, Yang."

Smiling back, Yang turned to Neon. The smaller girl looked crestfallen, and it was easy to guess why. Caressing her cheek, Yang gave the redhead an elongated kiss. When finished, she extracted herself from between the two girls and abruptly stood up. The swift action caused the two faunus to lose their support and fall into each other. Blake straightened herself to a sitting position again but Neon just readjusted herself to keep laying on the couch, this time her head was resting on Blake's lap.

Actions like that confused her. Both girls had already admitted to liking the other. Blake was trying to cuddle with Neon on the window sill and Neon was generally disheartened by not getting to touch Blake's ears and was now laying on her lap. Even with that, it still felt like she was dating two the two girls independently and they weren't in a true relationship. Scratching her head in frustration she growled slightly and got both of the faunus' attention.

"You ok, Sunshine?" Neon inquired from her resting place.

"Yeah, it's just." She thought about it for a second. "I need to go do something fun. Next week is Thanksgiving so I have been working overtime this week due to the short week coming up. Plus, both of you have been busy with upcoming finals."

"Ooh." Neon shot up in a sitting position. "We should go to a club! It is Friday night after all! There is one down the street, just past the coffee shop."

"That was actually the one I was going to when I stumbled upon your shop, Neon." Yang smiled, but that faded as she recollected an important piece of information. "We can't. Blake has sensitive ears, that wouldn't be fair to her."

"Oh!" Neon leaned over to deliver an apologetic hug to the taller faunus. "I forgot and I'm sorry we can go do something else that is a little more low key if you want I would hate for you to be in pain because of me and my silly ide-"

Blake halted her rambling by pressing a finger to her lips. "It's ok. I actually have a bow that protects my ears from loud noises. I would have to break my promise and hide my ears though."

"We don't hafta go to the club"

"I want to." Blake looked between the blonde and redhead. "For both of you."

Neon looked as though she were contemplating something. "Fine. One condition."

"Name it and it's yours.."

The barista started to bounce slightly. "I want you to tie a bow in my hair too!"

Blake looked at her with curiosity. "Won't that look odd with twintails?"

"I don't care." Neon retorted instantly. "I said that I was going to support you no matter what. So I am going to wear a bow too."

"So club it is?" Yang added in before Blake could respond to the energetic girl.

"Yup!" Neon chirped while Blake nodded.

"Bonzai!" Yang cheered. "Let's go get ready! We'll stop someplace for dinner on the way too."

* * *

Two sets of heels clicked as they walked down the sidewalk joined by the light, arrhythmic patter of a pair of flats. Both Yang and Blake were wearing heels, but it was easy to say that Blake wore them better. Combined with a pair of stone-washed skinny jeans and a simple black crop top blouse, her outfit highlighted her figure perfectly and gave the impression that she may visit clubs more frequently than they had thought. That would also explain the design of the bow that Blake wore in her hair that covered her cat ears and blocked almost all sound from reaching them.

Skipping ahead of her, and leading the way, was the other faunus. She had wanted to wear heels like the other two girls to match them and help nullify that already huge disparity in height between them. However, a few test runs at the apartment showed that Neon was incapable of walking in heels, let alone dancing in them. Resorting to flats, she looked as though she was dressed to go to a rave, rather than a club. Her bright pink mini-skirt and light blue v-line top were accompanied by a rainbow of fluorescent swirls the girl had painted down her arm. The outfit was completed off by a white leather choker worn around her neck. While she still wore Blake's bow on her left wrist, in her hair she had two additional bows. Instead of having one tied up in the middle, like Blake, she instead had the two bows holding up her normal twintail hairdo.

Yang had also participated in the theme for the evening. While she still wore most of her wild mane of blonde hair down and loose, but a black bow held part of it in a low-ponytail. The bow matched the simple black dress that she had decided to don for the evening. Normally she would have worn something more flamboyant and eye-catching. For tonight, she preferred not to draw attention to herself so she could pay better attention to her girlfriends.

As the trio turned the corner around the last block they caught sight of the their destination, and the long line waiting at its entrance.

"Oh." Neon's tail drooped until it was almost touching the ground. "That's a long line."

"Yeah." Blake agreed. "I don't mind waiting, but we could also try a different club."

"Hang on." Yang focused on the name of a club, its neon sign was taunting her with familiarity.

It hit her, she knew why she recognized the name and she grabbed Blake's hand to pull her forward who, in turn, snagged Neon's hand as they went past. "Come on, let's try the VIP entrance!"

The three girls pushed past the crowd of people that were waiting to get in the normal entrance. Yang was keeping her eyes peeled for someone who she knew would be greeting the VIPs as they entered his club. After a moment she saw him, a giant of a man who was dressed in black three-piece suit and a red tie. He was facing away at the moment, but as they got closer she yelled out to him.

"Juniooorrr…" Yang called in a sing-song voice.

The man whirled around to locate the source of the greeting.

"Blondie?" He seemed confused for a moment before glaring. "What are you doing here?"

Yang released Blake's hand and put her fists on her hips while glaring back. "If I had known this club was your dump I would have made plans to go elsewhere."

Neon and Blake shrank back a few steps as intensity grew between the two. To their surprise, both Yang and Junior broke into smiles and stepped forward to give each other bone-crushing hugs.

"Why'd you move your club here?" Yang prodded.

"A change of scenery was needed, but how about you, Blondie?" Junior asked again. "What are you doing here? When did you move to Vacuo? Are you keeping out of trouble?"

"A bad decision brought me to Vacuo." Yang stepped back to gesture the faunus forward. "But a good decision brought me to your club tonight. I am looking to show my girls here a good time."

"Well, I would be more than happy to help you out that." Digging into his pocket he pulled out some drink vouchers before handing them to the blonde. "Come on in, I'll have the twins get you a table."

A girl with black hair and a red strapless dress appeared by Junior's side and led them to an empty table. As they got situated an identical looking girl in a white dress brought a tray a of champagne to their table, handing a glass to each of them.

"Thank you, Mel, Milly." Yang winked at the two girls before blowing them a kiss.

That action caused both girls to turn their noses up and walk away from their table.

"What was that?" Blake inquired, taking a small sip of her champagne.

Yang faced the faunus and took a seat and face the faunus. Shifting closer to them to avoid having to raise her voice to combat the increasing volume of the club's music.

"What was what?"

"Getting us into the club." Blake replied as took another sip of champagne. "And why those girls don't like you."

"That." Yang stated back. "That is a long story."

"Can we get the short version?" Neon piped up, still holding her untouched beverage in her hand.

Yang stared at her surroundings for a moment. The club around her was the same setup as the club that Junior had owned back in Vale. Some of the fine details had been changed, but it was certain that most of items in the building had been shipped down here instead of replaced. A sentiment that made her smile. On the other hand, it brought back memories of one of her weaker moments.

"Years ago, back when I graduated from college, everything was looking up. My step-mother, a wonderful woman by the name of Summer, had left money in savings accounts that only me, and my sister Ruby, could touch. It got me through college without debt, and previously allowed me to take legal custody of Ruby when I turned 18 and get her away from our father. After a few years we went to plan for Ruby to go college and found that our deadbeat dad had managed to access her account and clear the whole thing out.

"I didn't know what to do that day. I could afford to take care of the both of us, but there was no way for me to put Ruby through school without taking extensive loans out. She had been wanting to go to Atlas University for years, but that is probably the most expensive school on Remnant. She was a certified genius, took the test and everything. It was the first time I couldn't give her everything she wanted and I didn't know how to handle it.

"So, distraught, I found my way to Junior's club and got drunk. I started causing problems and Junior tried have me removed. Mel and Mil are his bouncers, they tried to remove me but I fought them. I won that fight but caused a lot of property damage before I left. I was lucky that Junior didn't press charges. I felt so bad that I came back after the club had been fixed up, and I am sure he probably scammed his insurance for more money than it cost to fix, to apologize. I ended up modifying his sound and light system for him free of charge. I used to drop by once a month before I moved to fix anything that broke for him and we've been friends ever since."

Yang took a deep breath after finishing the story. Of course she left out a few key details of Junior having hit her with a baseball bat after she threw another one of his bouncers across the bar or that she had tried to make off with a bottle of high-end scotch. That would be a story for another time but, for right now, they were here to have fun.

A cough caught the blonde's attention. Yang looked over to where Neon was sitting, her face blanched as she haphazardly set her champagne glass down.

"Not a fan?" Yang raised an eyebrow towards her short faunus girlfriend.

Neon shook her head and grabbed a cocktail napkin that was sitting on the table to wipe her mouth. Seeing that she missed a droplet of the champagne on her lips, Yang leaned over the table and pulled the younger faunus into a deep kiss. As she pulled away, her tongue ensured that the offending liquid was removed. Taking a sharp breath, Neon looked down at the drink again before resuming eye contact with blonde. A playful smile played on her lips as she grabbed the taller girl's hand and pulled her to the dance floor.

As she was being dragged to dance floor she took in the comfortably familiar surroundings. The strobe lights, glass pillars, and endless swirl of rose petals that were constantly falling from the ceiling but never seemed to accumulate on the ground. It was identical to the location where she had made one of the worst decisions in her life but, in the end, it changed her life in a positive manner. Moving to Vacuo also ended up originally being a terrible decision, but the pressure she felt on her hand from the redheaded faunus told her it turned out alright.

A warm presence broke her from her thoughts as the music picked back up. As the bass started to reverberate through the club again, the mass of bodies around them began to continue their entangled antics. Faces blurred into an indistinct backdrop as the only clear image in Yang's head was the smiling faunus in front of her. All her worries and stress drained away as Neon moved in close and started to gyrate her hips back and forth to the time of the music.

Yang always thought that she was a fantastic dancer. Whenever she had been out to the clubs her movements had always attracted attention from other patrons. Next to Neon, she may as well have been a trained gorilla. The lithe energetic movements movements stole the attention from everyone around them, not that Yang minded. Every time the shorter girl rubbed up against her or dragged a hand across her body pushed more and more into a euphoric state of mind. There was only one thing that would make this better, and it was announced by a low, sultry voice in her ear.

"Hey there, beautiful." The warm breath on her ear caused shivers to run down her spine and a new body pressed against her back and familiar hands rested on her hips. "May I join in?"

Blake's style of dance was different that of Neon's. More reserved, but no less energetic than her tailed counterpart, Blake added an additional intimate and sensual flair to her movements. Neither style conflicted with her or each other, instead they only seemed to complement the other.

After what seemed like hours but was, in reality, only a few songs, Yang felt her energy start to bleed away. The fatigue of a stressful week started to catch up to her and she needed a breather. Placing a hand on the small of Neon's back, she pulled the girl close and leaned over her to whisper to Blake that she was going to go sit for a second. Amber eyes flashed with concern until she gave her a kiss and a smile. Spinning Neon away from her, Yang positioned the girl to land in Blake's embrace before walking back to the table.

Collapsing down on the the padded bench that wrapped around the table, Yang cast her eyes back to where she had left the faunus. Both girls were dancing with each other with the same sensual fervor as before. Picking up Neon's still full glass of champagne, she decided to sit back and enjoy the sight. Many of the young men were apparently enjoying the sight as well, causing Yang to giggle as she saw several of them approach the two girls over the course of the next few songs. Either one or the other girl would turn them away, even the more persistent ones always found their advances to be shot down or ignored.

It was the natural order of places like this. Yang knew that she was committing what they would see as a bigger crime by sitting by herself. Many of the stags and, hopefully, unattached males of the club often turned their eyes towards her. Being in the the cordoned off private area meant that she was safe from the approaches of anyone else who wasn't also permitted in the VIP area. That protection was not infallible, however, as the blonde felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around to see a short girl with different colored eyes. After the recovering from the unexpected coloration of pink and brown, she saw that the girl was gesturing her to dance with her. Before meeting Blake and Neon, Yang would have taken the girl up on her offer without hesitation, but now.

"Sorry." Yang smiled at the girl. "I am here with someone."

The girl pouted briefly before walking off. Yang felt better when she saw a redheaded man with long bangs approach the multi-colored girl and they began dancing together near the far side of the dance floor.

"Whatcha looking at, bestie?" Neon's voice called out as the faunus hopped over the bench to sit next to Yang, a huge grin on her face.

"Nothing." Yang mirrored the grin. "Was watching you guys dance for the most part. Looked like you guys had fun."

"Yeah!" The faunus exclaimed back, sounding a little out of breath. "It would have been better with you there, but Blake is an awesome dancer."

"Yes she is." She agreed before looking around and trying to spy the ravenette. "Speaking of which, where is Blake?"

"Oh! She's getting us drinks." Neon twisted around on the bench to point towards the bar. Yang noticed a change in her face, the jubilant expression the shorter faunus was wearing dropped. "And she's getting hit on by some creep!"

"Probably." The engineer joked as she turned to locate Blake "But we don't have anything to worry about because…" Yang's voice faded as she recognized not one, but two people standing at the bar.

"Remnant to Yang." The tailed-faunus poked her girlfriend in the side. "What's wrong?"

Yang covered her mouth as she saw the silver-haired sleazeball put his hand on Blake's shoulder. "That's my ex, Mercury."

* * *

 **Well, looks like we are going to get another chapter!**

 **Leave me some feedback and let me know what you think with a review, fav, or follow.**


	7. Playing Favorites

**Author's Note: Not much to say here but RWBY Volume 4 is less than a week away!**

 **Storytime!  
*Cue dramatic music and LordNodrogLock's demonic laughter***

* * *

"Wait!" Neon exclaimed as she turned back to her girlfriend and grabbed her by the wrists. "That is your ex-boyfriend? The reason that you ended up in my coffee shop in the middle of the night?"

Yang merely nodded to the seemingly excited faunus while her eyebrows knotted in confusion.

"Awesome! Can I go thank him or would that be weird because he doesn't know who I am but I'm so excited that he was a jerk to you because I never would have met you and…" The diminutive faunus' brain finally seemed to catch up with the words spilling out of her mouth as she trailed off, the loud music swallowing the last part of her rambling sentence. "Seeing him is bumming you out, isn't it?"

She placed one of her hands on the taller girl's shoulder as her tail rubbed against the blonde's exposed calf.

"Just a little." Yang eyes swept downward in a dejected manner.

So much for having a fun, carefree evening. It would only be a matter of time until either Mercury saw her and came over to 'chat' or she would get so worked up that she would tie herself up into a huge knot of stress.

"Oh! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! I'm supposed to be mad about this, aren't I? He was a jerk to you and now he is hitting on Blake." The small faunus bounced up and down looking both incredibly excited and confused

"Neon, you don't have to be."

The bouncing seized, if only momentarily. She cocked her head to the side and scratched the side of her head enthusiastically.

"You're right, I don't do the whole 'be mad at people' thing. Plus, come on, it's not like we actually have to worry about Blake. She's as loyal as they come."

"I know. Why don't we just get her and go."

"No! We aren't leaving her until you smile again!" Neon exclaimed as she started to bounce up and down again on her toes.

Yang looked the tailed-faunus in the eye and tried to force a smile.

"Nah, don't be silly. I'm gonna make you smile."

"How?"

"Look, I have an idea. You just wait here and watch the show. You'll know when to intervene." The faunus winked before spinning around and skipping towards the bar.

Yang could have sworn she heard the faunus say 'I've always wanted to do this' as she skipped away. Instead of calling out to the departing girl, Yang instead settled back down on the couch that was reserved for them. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the Malachite twins silently observing the situation that was unfolding in front of them. They were probably the first people to notice that someone had accosted one of the engineer's dates. Very subtly, she saw Militia whisper something into Melanie's ear while they both flicked their gaze in Yang's direction.

After that Militia went to go tend to some of the other guests while Melanie appeared to be headed straight back to where the blonde was sitting, with a drink in her hands.

"Hey, Melanie." She greeted the bouncer as she got close.

Stopping at the table, Melanie set the drink down with a napkin. "You know, as much of a pain in the ass you are, it's kind of refreshing that you can actually keep track of which one of us is which."

"Uh, thanks?" Yang responded hesitantly.

"Don't worry about it." The white-clothed girl pointed to the drink that was resting on the table. "That's for you. It's your favorite, top shelf and everything. Don't worry about the price either, we'll put it on Mr. Black's tab."

"Junior's generosity at its finest." Smirking, Yang delicately picked up her drink and took a sip. Pleased at the quality of the beverage she held, she gave a polite nod. "Thank you again."

"Like I said, don't worry about it. Mr. Black is a bigger nuisance than you but, unless he decides to get physical with any clientele, Junior won't let us boot him out."

"You have my sympathies."

With that, Melanie left to continue her duties as hostess. Yang settled back into the couch to watch as Neon approached where Blake and Mercury were standing at the bar. Apprehension gripped the blonde as she watched the smug bastard slick his hair back as he continued to chat up the raven-haired faunus. The bartender delivered two drinks in front of the pitiful excuse for a man who then promptly handed one to Blake before taking a healthy gulp of his own. The girl hesitantly accepted the drink before sniffing it carefully.

Before Blake could take a drink, Neon had reached her and wrapped the taller girl up into an enthusiastic hug. The motion caused the drink to spill out of Blake's hands and land right on Mercury's lap. Yang would have chalked the accident up to the klutzy girl's normal behavior, but the sly smile she flashed the cat-eared faunus, as well as the whispers they exchanged while Mercury frantically dried his lap with bar napkins, told her otherwise. As the silver-haired man finished cleaning the spilled beverage, and looked back up, Neon pulled Blake into a very prolonged kiss that left him stunned.

As the kiss continued, Yang had the pleasure of watching her ex start to squirm a little in his chair; this was obviously not a situation that he was used to.

"Enjoying the show?" A voice spoke up behind her, causing her to jump.

Looking to her right, Yang noticed that Melanie had reappeared and was sitting on the couch next to her.

"Aren't you supposed to be working?" Returning her gaze back to where her girlfriends were still entangled in front of the flabbergasted man.

"Yeah. This is more interesting."

Anything else the bouncer may have said was lost on the engineer as she became absorbed in what was happening at the bar. As Neon continued to hang off on Blake's arm, both girl's had their attention on Mercury who was speaking to them. As a sly smile grew on his face, Blake did something that Yang had never expected her to do. The faunus cocked her head to the side, twirled her bangs with her fingers, and giggled. The behavior matched Neon's normal ditzy attitude and, quite frankly, it was very adorable. She made a note in the back of her mind to attempt to get the raven-haired faunus to repeat that pose.

She was still curious as to exactly what exactly Neon had planned, she kept her focus on their interactions. Mercury motioned to the bartender before returning his attention to the two faunus in front of him. Just thinking about the thoughts that could be going through that lecher's mind was almost enough to make her storm over to the bar and try to run him off, but the way that Neon clung to the Blake's arm left her feeling reassured. Her eyes wandered to the bartender as he scurried to mix drinks, snatching various bottles from the top shelf of the cabinets behind him. Just as swiftly as the bartender left, he returned with three drinks, setting them in front of the trio.

Just as the bartender set the glasses down, Neon energetically pulled Blake's arm, forcing the taller girl away from the bar. Pulling Blake through the crowd, like a overly enthusiastic puppy straining against its leash, her turquoise eyes met Yang's and winked before refocusing on Blake. Taking that as her cue, Yang stood up and started to walk to a point where she would intersect the collegiate girl's path.

"Ya know." Melanie voice sounded from behind her. "I think I am going to go find Junior."

Not turning to confirm the bouncer's actions, Yang just gave a brief nod and continued on her way, complementary drink still in hand. Choosing a small table at the border of the dance floor, the engineer leaned casually on it and tried to nonchalantly sweep her eyes across the crowd as though she were looking for an easy pick-up. She didn't know why, but something about the way Neon had looked at her told her that she was supposed to act as though she had never met the two faunus before.

"Hey, watch it!" A disgruntled female voice cut through the music as it started to crossfade into a different song.

Amethyst eyes snapped to the source of the outburst.

"Sorry!" Neon chirped back as she continued to haphazardly pull Blake, bumping into several more people as she looked back at the woman who had protested.

Fighting the urge to facepalm, she heard another familiar voice rise above the venue's noise.

"Wait a moment! I didn't get your names."

Mercury was still in pursuit of the feline duo. Turning herself and Blake around to face the silver-haired man, Neon left a hand behind her back where he couldn't see it, and beckoned Yang forward.

"Cuz we didn't tell you." Neon's voice still maintained its normal cheerfulness, despite her mocking language. "It was kind of intentional."

"But I bought you a drink, the least you could do is talk to me."

"Well it's still there! You can drink it yourself." She cocked her head to the as she pulled herself in tighter against Blake's arm. "Or you could talk to it, I'm sure it has abandonment issues now."

The urge to facepalm was almost irresistible as Yang approached the trio. She was approaching from an angle, so with Mercury's attention fully focused on Neon and Blake, there would be no way for him to notice her approach.

"Besides." Blake's cool voice drifted through the air. "I wasn't thirsty anyways."

Wheeling away from their pursuer, Blake's eyes connected with Yang's. The subtle, crooked smile Blake had caused the blonde's heart to jump a little in her chest.

"You though." Blake's voice dropped to a lower, huskier pitch. "You can buy me a drink."

"Whoa, hang on!" Mercury stepped forward reaching as though he was going to grab for Blake's free arm as his eyes following Blake's gaze. "I was talking to these girls first! Who do you thin- Yang?"

"Hello, Mercury." Despite her best efforts, her voice contained a bitter edge.

She thought she was going to be ok with whatever Neon had planned. Playing along with the faunus' idea and exacting some sort of revenge against her ex seemed like a great idea when it was at a distance but, now that she was within a few feet of him, she no longer felt any joy. The memory of getting home from work that day. Having just been fired, she was ready to talk to what she thought was her loving boyfriend, to get some sort of comfort. Opening the door to their shared apartment to find everything he owned gone, only a brief note gave any semblance he once lived there. She hadn't heard a peep from him since that day. It had been the first time she had been able to commit herself to serious relationship since she no longer had to care for Ruby on a daily basis.

A brush to her arm brought her back to focus. Turquoise orbs stared at her in concern and then encouragement. That was what she needed. She was reminded that there were people who cared about her. She looked from Neon to Blake, who had also closed in on her, lightly touching her shoulder with the hand that Neon didn't have captured. Coworkers, roommates, friends, girlfriends; it didn't matter at whatever level she looked at it. Those two had been there for her since the moment she met them.

"Why don't we get out of here." Neon suggested.

Those words meant one thing to Yang. The comfort they intended wasn't lost to her, however, the fourth person listening on the conversation took it an entirely different way. Mercury's presence, which had been neglected by the three girls came rushing to the forefront of the scene.

"I don't know what you think you're doing, but I suggest you leave me and these girls alone." Mercury's anger reflected in his voice.

His eyes focused on Yang in a manner very reminiscent of a predator protecting its meal from a competitor. The feelings of self-pity she was feeling before evaporated as she felt her own ire rise. Suddenly, the thought of revenge against Mercury filled her with joy again.

"I think I will leave the decision up to these lovely ladies." A quick smirk and wink to the heir carried her message of confidence as she slung her one arm over Neon's shoulders and wrapped her other arm behind Blake's back. The action separated the two girls from each other and placed them to each side of her. "Plus, I would be a terrible person if I didn't try to protect them from your slovenly ways."

The words hit their intended mark, and had the effect she hoped for. The man's body went rigid and his muscles tensed up. Marching forward, he stepped within a few feet of where Yang was standing and leaned in close enough for her to smell the liquor on his breath. She felt both Neon and Blake tense up as well, but neither of them shrank away from the aggressor. The memories of what the two faunus were willing and capable of doing to defend each other floating through her mind. She knew that if Mercury tried anything, both faunus would leap to her defense. Not that it would come to that, she was lifelong athlete and a master kickboxer, Mercury was the playboy heir to an engineering firm.

"Walk away now, Yang. Before I get angry." His growl was almost lost to the background chatter as the people closest to them started to notice the altercation in progress. "And leave what's mine."

"Someone is feeling a bit entitled." The blonde taunted back, refusing to give ground despite the uncomfortableness of their proximity to each other. "You should learn to respect women better. Now back away before I have to kick your ass."

"You wouldn't dare." He menaced as he leaned in even closer.

"I was trying to let you save face in front of everyone, and I was really hoping that I wouldn't ruin my dress."

Yang's arms dropped away from her girlfriends as Mercury took another step towards her, placing him at mere inches away.

"Go ahead, take your best shot." The silver-haired man sneered.

"I won't need to." A glint of amusement flashed in Yang's demeanor as a new person emerged from the crowd behind him.

With his preoccupation, Mercury had missed one important thing that everyone who frequented Junior's clubs knew to never forget about; Junior's proclivity towards having a hand in handling everything in his club, including breaking up fights.

A large hand clasped Mercury's shoulder and forced him about-face. An objection formed in his throat but died before it could make it past his lips. While slightly taller than average, he was completely dwarfed by Junior who towered over him by almost a whole foot. Melanie and Militia flanked him to either side, their normal, apathetic attitudes showing a dash of irritation.

"Junior." Mercury slung his arms akimbo. "This woman was causing problems for me and trying to start an altercation. Please have her removed."

"On the contrary, Mr. Black. From where I was standing, it looked like you were trying to start a fight with my favorite customer." The giant man pivoted and swept his arm towards the exit of the club. "I am going to have to ask you to leave."

"You're going to take the side of some dumb broad over me? Do you know how much business I bring you?"

"Usually enough to cover for guests you drive off. Mel, Milly..." Stepping back away from Mercury, so the twin bouncers could step forward to escort the errant man towards the exit. "Please show him out."

"Unhand me, Wench!" Mercury demanded, pulling his arm away as Militia tried to guide him politely to the exit. After taking a glance back to glare at Yang one more time, he pushed his way through other patrons as he stormed towards the exit.

"Please make sure he leaves without starting anything." Junior commanded his bouncers as he sighed and rubbed his temples. "Yang, I apologize for one of my customers causing you so many problems. Let me make this up to you."

"No need." The engineer bounded forward, wrapping her arms around her friend again. "Just you being there when I needed you is enough for me." She smiled as heavy arms draped over her back and Junior reciprocated the hug. "Plus I wasn't entirely innocent."

"Well, there will always be a table for you whenever you come back."

"Thanks." She pulled away and reached back to grab Neon and Blake's hands. "I will be by sometime next week to check on your sound gear and light rigs. It will be like old times! As for now, I think we are going to take off too."

"I can get one of my men to drive you home, if you'd like."

"Thanks, Junior."

* * *

"Ahhh!" Neon tried to flop down on Yang's couch after they were dropped off by Junior's limousine. "It's so good to be back to your place."

"Neon." Blake implored, catching her arm before she could tumble onto the furniture. "Go shower before you lay down."

"Phooey!" Neon pouted before skipping down the hall.

"Go ahead and use mine, Neon." She called after her before turning back to face the blonde. "Hey, Yang. Can you wait a moment before you go shower?"

"Yup. What's up kittycat?"

"It's…" Blake sighed and cast her eyes downwards. "It's about Neon."

"Ok?" Yang stepped forward and held the faunus hands gently before bringing one up and kissing the back of it. "Is everything ok?"

"Yeah. Everything's fine… It's just…"

Yang waited patiently as Blake paused. The raven-haired woman wasn't the best when it came to expressing her emotions. She tended to bottle things up, both good and bad, until they hit a tipping point and it would all come exploding out. Switching her grip so she was holding both of Blake's hands in one of her own, Yang used her now free hand to caress her girlfriend's cheek and tilt her head so they made eye contact. The embarrassed blush on Blake's face told her she shouldn't be concerned about what she had to say.

"Well…" Blake took a deep breath before continuing. "Look, I know we haven't been dating for very long. But, I have always enjoyed the fact that when I get home from school, or my job with the university, that I can always count on seeing you, and your never ending smile. I love the fact that on a Saturday morning I can roll out of bed and find you in the kitchen making breakfast. I thought that was enough, but now it feels like something missing."

"Uh, Blake. You aren't going to try to propose to me are you? I mean, I would be flattered and all but-"

"No!" The faunus freed one of her hands to punch the blonde in the shoulder.

"Ow…" Yang pulled away in mock horror and rubbed her shoulder where she had just been hit.

"I know for a fact that didn't hurt." Placing her hands on her hips, her blush was replaced by glare. "I am being serious here."

"Ok, ok Kit." Yang closed back in on where Blake was standing. "I am all ears."

Blake's face softened back up, removing the previous glare but the blush didn't return. "I just thought it would be nice to be able to come home and… have Neon here too." Yang opened her mouth but Blake spoke up quickly to cut her off. "I know you asked her to live with you before you even put out the ad to find me. I know it would be tight living here with three people, but she is here several nights a week already and this technically is a three bedroom apartment, we would just have to rent one of the storage sheds instead of keeping things in the extra room."

"Blake…"

"And like I said, I want her to live here."

"Blake, it's ok." The engineer drew her into a comforting hug."It isn't a problem of space or want. Neon's told me several times that she would have loved to move here. The problem is money. The school has a really hefty fine for terminating her dorm contract early. If she gets caught moving out, or leaving the room vacant, it's a bigger fine. I would have done it, but I have to save for Ruby's next school term, and Neon is barely keeping up with her school expenses."

"Actually, I already thought about that. The school gave me a raise and one of the grants I applied for, that I never thought I would get, chose me to be its recipient. The grant is already more than enough to pay for next term's school expenses. I was thinking about using the extra money for us to go on a short vacation, but after today… I want to do this." Blake squeezed Yang back. "I want to do this on Monday. That way we can move her in here before Thanksgiving."

"Are you sure? That's a lot of money."

"Positive."

"Alright, let's talk to Neon then… After I shower."

* * *

"Of course the day we help you move is the one day that we have thunderstorms." Blake protested, her ears were tucked flat against her head to prevent water from getting into them. She patted her hair dry after she set down the last box of Neon's items.

"Then you shouldn't have asked me to move in." Neon quipped back as she fluffed the newly dried hair on her tail by whipping it back and forth. "What kind of lady do you think I am to change my mind just because the weather was a little wet?"

"Alright, alright. Besides what you guys just brought in, all of your stuff is in your new room, Neon." Yang stepped around the corner dressed in a set of baggy sweats and holding two large towels.

"Woohoo!" Neon stepped forward into the living room only to have one of the towels thrown at her face. "Wah? Why Yang?"

"Because neither of you are walking through here while you're dripping wet." Yang smirked deviously. "Leave your wet stuff by the door, I'll throw it in the wash while you guys are showering."

Yang stepped forward and grabbed the box Blake had just brought in and carried it down the hall towards Neon's room.

Twenty minutes later all three of them were all nice and warm, snuggled up in Yang's bed. Blake was leaning against Yang's shoulder as they watched one of Yang's favorite sci-fi movies. Neon, on the other hand, was sprawled out across their laps, seemingly already asleep.

"Look at that, tuckered out already." Yang commented as they both looked at the younger faunus.

"Yeah." Blake responded sleepily, before leaning forward to kiss the girl on her cheek. "She told me she was so excited that she didn't sleep at all last night."

"Regret anything yet?"

"No. If anything I am all the more excited to wake up tomorrow and have both you of by my side."

"Mmm.." Yang leaned forward to kiss Neon in the same place Blake did, before pulling the older faunus closer to her. "Me too."

* * *

 **Awww, so sweet!**

 **Thank you all for reading, and special thank to those that reviewed, followed, and favorited. And thanks to Zelindsay and XenonRaumzeit for editing.  
If you catch any errors, just think, it is twenty times worse when I try to edit it myself.**

 **So this is it for this story. I am being serious this time, no more actual chapters. Just an epilogue where Ruby gets to meet Yang's new friends.**

 **Also, I will be starting a new story called Momentum that will be slice of life one-shots with our three favorite girls.**


	8. Family

**Author's Note: And the last chapter is here!**

 **You'll probably be able to guess when this chapter was supposed to be released, but sometimes time just slips away from you.**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

"Bah, it's so lame how we can't go meet them at their gate." Yang whined as she and Blake pushed their way through the crowded airport.

Feeling Blake clutch onto her arm, she made sure to move slower so the faunus didn't get brushed off and lost in the crowd. The crowds here this time of year were understandable, being only a week before Christmas, but that didn't make them any more pleasant to fight. The lines for the security checkpoints stretched past the rope and stanchions spilled out into the general causeway. Due to thoughtless design, or inept architects, the people exiting from the planes would exit the secure areas on the other side of the security queue; and there were lots of impatient travelers who didn't want to let the two women through. Glancing over to Blake, and her twitching feline ears, she was happy that at least the carpeted floor helped absorb some of the sound. Despite that, the faunus still looked physically uncomfortable.

"Come on, Blakey." She tried to sound as reassuring as possible, which was considerably difficult due to the noise. "There is an open spot over there."

Finally reaching their destination, an open spot on the wall they could stand against while observing the flow of people arriving via planes as they made their way to the baggage claim. Her stomach grumbled as the smell of fried food wafted over from a nearby restaurant and she wished she would have remembered to eat before leaving to the airport. She had been too excited to finally get to see her little sister again and had spent all morning buzzing around the apartment making sure it was all clean and ready for Ruby's visit.

Leaning against the wall, Yang pulled the faunus in for a hug and silently giggled as the soft velvet tip of one of Blake's ears tickled her cheek. Mid laugh she froze, as a thought that had been nagging her all morning finally bubbled its way up into her conscious mind. There was an elephant in the room, and it needed to be addressed.

"So, just thought I would let you know..." She released the raven-haired woman so she could see her eyes. Drawing in a deep breath, the blonde released one of her hands that had been wrapped around her girlfriend and used it to play with a loose strand of hair. "I may have forgotten to tell Ruby that Mercury and I broke up."

Blake eyed her girlfriend carefully, that wasn't just something a person just forgot. "How did you forget to tell her?"

The hand Yang was using to twirl her hair migrated farther back and she pulled the bulk of her long hair over her shoulder, stroking it with an air of anxiousness.

"So, you mean you didn't tell her on purpose, and you forgot to tell me you didn't tell her." Blake stated bluntly, giving the taller woman no room to beat around the bush.

"Uh, yeah, something like that." She muttered back.

Blake took a moment to assess the situation and what exactly could be bothering her companion. Yang had told her that Ruby was interested in her own traveling companion, which means that she shouldn't have an issue with her older sister dating another woman.

Her brain clicked as what should have been a simple deduction. "Which means you're worried about how your sister will take you dating two girls at once?"

Yang's eyes widened as her jubilant nature drained from her body, as her dilating pupils consumed the normal welcoming lavender.

"Well..." She spoke with a strained voice. "It isn't exactly common."

Slipping under the arm Yang was using play with her hair, Blake gave her another tight hug with a quick kiss to the cheek.

"You've never cared before." She consoled her as the blonde leaned her head into her.

Yang sighed heavily and tilted her head to rest on top of Blake's. It was true, she hadn't cared before, but this was her sister. Ruby was the only family she had in the world, if Ruby couldn't accept her choices, what would that do to their relationship?

"But," Blake continued softly. "I understand how Ruby's disapproval would be different."

The blonde moved her hand from her own hair and rested in on top of Blake's head, just at the base of her feline ears, and scratched them lightly for a few seconds.

"Yeah." Yang responded softly.

She sighed again before using her other hand to pull out her scroll to check the time. Ruby's plane landed about fifteen minutes ago, so she should be off the plane and almost to the general area. Smiling to herself, approving or not, she would still get to see her sister soon. Catching the concern lingering in Blake's eyes, she tilted her head forward to touch their foreheads together.

"With her vertical limitations, who knows." The engineer chuckled dully as she pulled away. "Maybe it will just all go over her head."

"That's right, she's super short isn't she?"

"Hehe." Yang chuckled again, this time mirth was apparent in her voice. "She's so short it will be hard to see her in the crowd, though she'll probably spot me right away… if she is paying attention."

Blake puzzled for a moment at Yang's wording. "Is she that easily distracted? Won't she be looking for you?"

"Well…" The taller girl hesitated momentarily as her eyes darted over the faunus' head, scanning the crowd for any bits of red she could spot. "Not exactly."

"Yang!" Blake exclaimed, starting to feel a tiny bit annoyed at her girlfriend's poor communication skills. "She doesn't know we are here to get her?"

Puffing her cheeks out in defiance, Yang kept her eyes moving through the crowd. Ruby had given away an easy way to find her, she just had to make sure to spot it first without being spotted herself.

Without looking back, she could feel the glowering amber eyes of the graduate student boring into the back of her head. Resisting for as long as possible, she finally confessed.

"I kinda wanted to surprise them."

"Them?" The ravenette questioned.

"Yup!" She cheerfully replied in a gleeful tone as a flicker of red drew her eyes, only to be disappointed by the another traveler's long red hair. "Apparently Ruby is bringing her friend with her."

"Yang Xing Xiao Long!" Blake exclaimed as her exasperation boiled over. Normally these antics wouldn't be an issue for her, but she was trapped in a crowded, and noisy, area that quite honestly smelled awful. "We are going to have a talk about your communication skills."

"Busting out the middle names now, are we Blake Fluor Belladonna?" Yang stuck her tongue out, teasing the flustered faunus.

She was about to continue her gentle, and good natured, taunting, but a tall, young woman with pure white hair caught her eyes and drew her gaze. What she saw made her smile grow larger, because next to that woman was a small, bouncing ball of energy clad in an old and worn out red sweatshirt.

"And there they are!" Yang flipped Blake around so she could see the oblivious duo continuing to make their way through the crowd. "What do you think her middle name is?"

"That's not really important." Blake grumbled as she pulled the excited woman by the arm, leading her to intercept Ruby and her friend. "Come on, Yang."

"Ruby said she is Atlesian, right?" Yang pondered out loud as she trotted behind the determined faunus. "Maybe it's something like Drachen."

"She isn't a videogame character." The cat-eared woman retorted. "No one would eve-"

"Ruuubbbeesss!" Yang cut her off as she went charging forward, startling the crowd and spooking the white-haired girl the was accompanying Ruby.

"Yaayaa!" Ruby's reaction was contrary to everyone around her. Instead of flinching away, the short girl whirled towards the shout and instantly jumped into Yang's arms as though it was a normal, everyday occurrence.

They two sisters spun around each other in the middle of the lobby, the shorter sister's suitcase and bag strewn across the ground; forgotten by their owner, but quickly tended to by Ruby's companion.

"You must be Weiss." Blake stated in an almost amused sounding monotone as she walked up next to the woman picking up the neglected red backpack.

Weiss turned slowly, her eyes remaining on the jubilant siblings still causing a ruckus with their reunion.

"How do they have so much energy?" Blake heard the alabaster woman whisper to herself. "I don't know if I can handle two of them together."

"Oh, don't worry. It'll get worse." The economist joked as she held out her hand. "I'm Blake by the way."

Over Ruby's head, Yang saw Weiss' sharp, blue eyes drifted away from their current focus to the other woman standing there. Locking eyes with Blake for only a moment, Weiss' eyes then moved up to an area above the faunus' head. Expecting some sort of indifference at best, since Atlesians have historically been the greatest offenders when it came to faunus rights, she was pleasantly surprised when Weiss gave a small bow before twisting her hands into a formal faunus greeting common in Menagerie.

Quickly returning the flawless greeting, Blake ended with a bow. "That wasn't necessary, but it is appreciated."

Weiss returned to her previous task of picking up Ruby's bags and Blake got the sense that the two of them were probably going to get along just fine. However, her ears flicked towards the sisters as she heard Yang's playful tone.

"Who asked who out?" The elder sister teased as she ruffled her younger sister's hair.

Yang's smile grew as blush marks instantly formed on both Ruby and Weiss' cheeks. While Weiss lowered her head in an attempt to hide them, Ruby mounted a large protest, complete with flailing arms.

"Gah! Yaya! Weiss and I aren't dating!" She pouted before puffing her cheeks out in defiance, finally showing a physical resemblance to her older sister.

"Really?" Yang continued with a devilish look in her eye. "From what you told me over your last message you two we-"

Sensing her chance to curry favor with Yang's sister, as well as turn the tables on the obnoxious blonde, Blake stepped forward and placed a finger on the taller girl's lips, silencing her mid sentence.

"Shhh, dear." Blake grinned slyly. "This isn't the place."

"Uh, sis." Ruby's animated outburst seized immediately as she pulled on one of Yang's sleeves. "Is it me, or did Mercury get hotter?"

"Well…" Yang stumbled over her words. "ThisiskindamygirlfriendBlake."

"Really?" The younger girl peered curiously at Blake. "Why didn't you tell me?! I could have brought her something from Menagerie!"

"I could have sworn I told you all about her."

"Yaya, you're a big liar." Ruby appeared contemplative for a moment before smiling and sticking her hand out towards the faunus. "Nice to meetcha. I'm Ruby!"

"The pleasure is all mine." Instead of letting go of Ruby's hand, Blake guided it to the crook of her arm and began to escort her towards the parking garage where they had left the car. "If you want to get your revenge on your sister, I can let you know some things that bother her."

"Yes please!" Ruby responded enthusiastically, making sure to keep pace with the retreating faunus.

Blake smiled mischievously over her shoulder back at Yang before continuing on her way. "Well, for starters, Yang hates the fact that I am a year older than her…"

As the black-and-red duo moved out of earshot, Yang turned back towards Ruby's friend.

"I'm Yang." She offered happily.

Yang chuckled inwardly at the new sight. While dressed in a very elegant manner, Weiss looked utterly frazzled as she tried to organize both her bags, and Ruby's, so she could carry all of them at once. The muted scowl the younger girl wore indicated that, while she was unhappy with the situation, she was either used to having to pick up after Ruby by now, or cared about the shorter girl enough that she was willing to put up with Ruby's occasional airheaded shenanigans.

"Charmed." Weiss replied dryly, finally finding a way to securely attach Ruby's backpack to her roller bag.

"Here." Yang grabbed the red-colored luggage. "Let me take these."

Weiss easily consented control over the luggage to Yang and they both headed in the direction the other two girls left in.

"Thank you. I'm Weiss by the way." She stated cordially. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you. Ruby talks about you all the time."

"The pleasure is mine." Yang eagerly responded back. "By the way, what's your middle name?"

"Silber." Weiss replied after a moment a silence. "Why?"

"Oh, no reason!"

* * *

The car ride back was relatively quick and uneventful as most of the traffic was headed in the other direction. Upon entering the apartment, Ruby abruptly dumped her bags on the floor and stretched her arms and legs.

"Sweet, Yaya! You don't have a tree yet." Ruby observed happily. "We can decorate together like we always do!"

"That is what I was intending." Yang smiled. "I was waiting for you."

"Yaya?" Blake snorted before chuckling.

"Hush you."

The next quarter of an hour was spent as the four of them discussed the decorating possibilities and tried to figure out the size of tree they could fit into the room. It was going smoothly, and relatively quietly, until they heard the lock on the door turn.

"Holy crap!" The cacophony of Neon's excited shriek, mixed with the simultaneous bang of the door slamming behind her and her roller blades impacting the floor, assaulted their ears. "There's someone my height!"

"Um…" Ruby stuttered, taken aback by the dramatic entrance. "I'm R-Ruby."

The pint-sized brunette held her hand out, a hand that was promptly ignored by the faunus as she pounced forward and wrapped the younger girl in a hug.

"I know who you are silly since your sister always talks about you and said you were all short and stuff but you're so small and adorable and..." Her eyes snapped up to the other stranger in the room as she saw blue eyes lock onto her own gaze. "...I think I made your girlfriend jealous."

"She's not my-" Ruby started to protest, but tapered off as she saw Weiss repeat the same elaborate greeting that the Atlesian had given to Blake.

Neon stared blankly at the white-haired girl while she finished the lengthy, non-verbal greeting.

"Is she deaf?" Neon leaned towards Yang and whispered, inadvertantly pulling the red themed girl with her as she never relinquished her ecstatic grip.

Neon's clueless sincerity was met by a snigger from Yang as the blonde tried to prevent herself from laughing. She didn't want to accidently hurt Neon's feeling, as the puzzled look reminded her how oblivious she could be, but she was trying so hard. Nor did she want to make Weiss feel awkward because the girl was also trying very hard to be welcoming.

"I'm sorry." Neon apologized to Ruby. "I don't know sign language. Tell her I say 'Hello, and welcome to our place.'"

The smacking of flesh from Blake's facepalm was almost lost as Yang finally choked on her contained laughter and began to cough.

"Uh, well, whoever you are." Ruby stammered as she tried to peel herself away. "Weiss, can hear you just fine. Just, ack! Weiss!"

Weiss sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose with her forefinger and thumb as she watched all of Ruby's failed attempt to free herself from the smaller faunus.

"My name is Weiss." She stated politely. "And you are?"

"Oh!" Neon finally let go off Ruby, only to bound forward and attempt to hug Weiss, just to be fended off by an outstretched hand. "I'm Neon!"

"It's a pleasure to meet you." Weiss gave a small nod before repositioning the bag on her shoulder. "Yang, is there a place where I can put our bags?"

"Right!" Yang exclaimed. "Neon, Blake, could you please take their bags and show Weiss to your room, Blake? She can stay there and Ruby in your room Neon."

"We w-" Weiss started to speak up before clamping her mouth shut as her cheeks started to gain a red tint to them.

"Sis?" Ruby spoke in an embarrassed half whisper. "I don't want to inconvenience anyone by making them sleep out here on the couch or anything. Weiss and I can share a room."

"Ok, ok. Show Weiss back to Neon's room and put all their stuff in there." Yang instructed her faunus girlfriends. "I need to talk to Ruby real quick."

"Yes, Ma'am!" Neon gave a playful salute as she grabbed a bag and made her way down the short hall with Blake and Weiss in tow.

"What did you want to talk about?" Ruby inquired, brushing her bangs to the side so she could see her older sister more clearly.

Yang paused for a moment, she didn't have much time to fill her sister in on her living and dating arrangement. She was quite surprised that Neon didn't accidently blurt anything out when she met Weiss and Ruby. The red-headed faunus wasn't supposed to be back for another hour and Yang had hoped to have the time to explain things with proper build up, but it was too late for that now. Plus, if Weiss was as smart as Ruby had claimed she was, the Atlesian was probably already figuring things out.

"Let's see." Yang started tentatively. "I'm… uh, um... you're only family I have and you'll love me no matter what, right?"

"I really hope you didn't trash another night club."

"No! I didn't!" Yang reassured with a forced smile. "But if I did, would you still love me?"

"Of course, Sis." Ruby smiled back as her silver eyes still managed to sparkle in the low light of the living room. "So what did you do?"

"Well. I-"

Yang paused. It was now or never. Except never wasn't an option. Ruby and Weiss were going to be here for the next week and a half and it would be impossible to hide it for that long. With a deep sigh, she gathered up all her courage.

"-I'm kinda of dating both Blake and Neon." She finally admitted and braced herself for the repercussions.

Ruby's smile dimmed and her eyebrows knotted.

"Do they get along?"

Yang blinked twice. It wasn't quite the response she was expecting.

"Well, yeah. They were the ones that suggested it." Yang explained briefly.

Without hesitation Ruby enthusiastically embraced her older sister, her smile returning to its normal radiance.

"That's so great!" Ruby proclaimed. "I am so happy for you three!"

Yang embraced her little sister tightly. Taking a deep breath, the pressure that had been on her chest finally released itself as she was able to hear Ruby's approval of her.

"Thanks, Rubes."

* * *

The next few days passed smoothly as the five of them made various trips around Vacuo taking in the sights and special holiday venues. The city was even better at night, as most businesses and residences had strings of lights, lawn figures, window decals and wreaths. In the town square, there was an a 40ft tree set up and decorated. After quick trip to a coffee shop, they managed to get their last minute Christmas shopping in, as well as purchasing the necessary items to decorate Yang's apartment.

Their trip to get a Christmas tree was just as fun, but more eventful. Through the most accurate means of measurement, that being Ruby sitting on Yang's shoulders and raising her arm until it hit the roof, they figured out they could have a nine and a half foot tree. Thankfully, while they were out at the tree farm they decided to just eyeball the height as there were several incidences of Weiss, Blake, and Neon slipping on the muddy surfaces. Finally, with the appropriate tree selected, they spent the rest of the day covering the tree with enough decorations that Weiss gave them a lecture on the potential fire hazard they just created. After everything settled down, and they managed to smoosh onto their tiny couch to watch old Christmas videos accompanied by mugs of hot chocolate and marshmallows, as was their habit for the last week.

Christmas Eve brought a change of pace as they woke up to several feet of snow covering the ground outside. Yang, Neon, and Ruby eagerly sprinted out the door, leaving the more even-mannered girls behind, forcing them to catch up.

"Whew!" Yang exclaimed as she flopped down on the park bench next to Blake. "I can't believe that Ruby still has energy. We've been out here for hours now."

The moment Yang sat down, Blake scooched as close to her as possible, trying to suppress her shivers. Moving her blanket, so it would cover Yang's lap as well, and capture the blonde's body heat, she started to feel warmer. While she was cold out here, she was still having a lot of fun watching the others play.

"Looks like Neon is still at it too." She commented dryly, her voice muffled by the scarf wrapped around neck and face.

Yang looked back to where she had left Ruby. She watched in fascination as Neon and Ruby went tearing through the park, chasing each other and throwing snowballs.

"So, Blakey." Yang snuggled in closer to the faunus. "You never really talked much about your family."

Blake eyed her girlfriend carefully. "What brought this on?"

"Well, just watching my only family member growing up." Yang flinched as she watched Ruby take a snowball right to the face. "Neon grew up in an orphanage. So what about you?"

"Dunno." Blake shrugged. "Parents joined a cult. So I grew up with a friend named Ilia. I left Menagerie for college nine years ago and haven't heard from any of them since."

Yang blinked slowly as she listened to Blake's nonchalant delivery.

"Uh, so…" She paused, this really wasn't what she was expecting. "I'm sorry?"

"Don't worry about it. I haven't thought about it since I met you."

While Yang couldn't see Blake's mouth, she could tell that the faunus was smiling by the way her eyes lit up.

"Still…" Yang faltered, her brain couldn't quite twist around it, but if Blake said it was ok. "I guess-"

"Whatcha talkin' about?"

Yang felt pressure on her shoulders as Neon slung her arms around both of the seated women.

"Nothing important." Blake sat up enough to kiss Neon's cheek. "Just some things that happened a long time ago."

Yang checked back at what her sister was doing. It looked as though she had conned Weiss into making a snowman with her.

"Looks pretty, Sis!" Yang called across the park.

"Thanks, Yaya!" Ruby yelled back as she stuck a branch into the side of the snowman. "It looks like Weiss, doesn't it?"

"Spitting image!"

"Hey!" Weiss protested.

"Aw, Weiss. Yang said it looked pretty." The brunette consoled as she grabbed her friend's arm.

Yang felt Blake shiver again before her own stomach grumbled in hunger.

"Time to go!" She hollered to the squabbling duo, before helping Blake up. "Let's go back for dinner!"

* * *

"Good night, Weiss." Yang heard Ruby bid her friend good night as she hugged her briefly. When Ruby gave a furtive glance down the hallway, Yang realized that she couldn't see her and she decided to watch and see what happened next. Believing that she wasn't being watched, Ruby got up on her tip-toes and gave Weiss a quick kiss on the cheek. "I am going to be out in the living room all night with Yang. It's a tradition."

"Ok." Weiss' hand moved up to touch the warm spot on her cheek. "I'll s-see you in the morning."

Ruby bounced down the hallway back to where her sister was laying out blankets on the floor of the living room.

"Alright, Yaya!" She cheered as she belly-flopped onto the pile of blankets. "Time to stay up all night!"

Yang grinned as she grabbed the corner of one of the blankets below her sister and pulled as hard as she could, causing Ruby to tumbled off the pile.

"I swear you always try to make this as difficult as possible." Yang reached forward and flicked Ruby's forehead. "Boink!"

Ruby groused and rubbed her forehead. Yang took that moment to finish laying out the blankets. She pushed the couch and table off to the side and made sure there were enough blankets to make the ground comfortable to sleep on. This was something the both of them had done every year since they were very little. They would lay out by the Christmas tree and try to stay up all night to see when their presents would appear under the tree. Invariably Ruby would fall asleep first and Yang would place the presents under the tree. Now, since Ruby was older and knew what was going on, they just took the opportunity to stay up all night and watch their favorite TV shows.

The two of them settled under the covers and turned on a show from their youth. They chit chatted idly in the meantime. Several hours passed and Yang noticed Ruby had started to nod off, but the creaking of one of the bedroom doors opening caused her to blink back awake.

"Whatwusthat?" Ruby mumbled, looking towards the hallway.

"I'm sorry." Weiss apologized quietly as she silently walked into the living room. "I got hungry and I was hoping you two would already be asleep."

"Mmmm…" Ruby nodded as her eyes started to glaze over again.

"Don't worry." Yang whispered. "You aren't bothering us. Grab some food and come sit."

"You sure you're ok with that, Yaya?" Ruby muttered sleepily.

"Of course, Sis." Yang ruffled her little sister's hair. "Since you are so sleepy, this is a good chance to interrogate her."

"Not fair." Ruby slurred in protest.

Yang leaned forward and kissed the top of the brunette's head. "Try and stop me."

Ruby grumbled as her head flopped back against Yang's shoulder. Yang giggled softly as she looked up to see Weiss approaching with a small plate of food.

"Sit." Yang smiled and indicated to the space next to Ruby.

Weiss sat cross legged next to Ruby as Yang gently set Ruby's head on the ground and turned onto her side so she could prop her own head up with her arm.

"Should I be worried?" Weiss' eyebrows knitted together in concern.

"I think Ruby is getting a little too old for me to be pulling the intimidating older sister bit on the people she dates." Yang reassured the smaller woman. "I'd like to thank you though for taking care of this explosive ball of sunshine for me."

"We aren't exactly dating." Weiss quipped before taking a bite of the leftover pie that Ruby had baked for their dessert earlier that evening.

"I dunno. Seems close enough." Yang glanced down at Ruby's sleeping form. "I know Ruby's been going crazy over you all week."

""We'll…" Weiss fell into a sullen mood as she stared at the pie in her hands. "It's... well, my family. They don't approve of Ruby… or well, me. That is why I let your sister drag me to Menagerie."

"Sounds like you and Blake switched places." The blonde rubbed one of her eyes. "Why d-"

A creak in the hallway drew both of their attention as Blake shuffled into the living room. Following behind her was a barely awake Neon clinging to the sleeve of Blake's pajamas.

"Sorry." Blake shrugged lethargically. "Neon couldn't get to sleep and when she heard you guys talking and she insisted we come out."

"It's ok!" Yang patted the area on the other side of her. "Make yourselves comfortable."

Yang started to worry, she was looking to hold onto her one last family tradition. Ruby and Yang had been through everything together. The inclusion of others didn't mean that they would lose that, right? Regardless, that didn't change what was the right thing to do.

"You know, Weiss." Looked back to the forlorn Atlesian. "Why don't you join our family?"

"What?" Weiss stopped eating again.

"If your family disapproves of you, you're always welcome here." Yang sat up and smiled as brightly as she could. "Even if the whole dating Ruby thing doesn't work out, we'll all still be friends."

"Really?"

"Yup." Ruby's voice startled both of them. "We'll still be friends no matter what."

"Ruby…"

"We're here for you too." Blake spoke, as she stroked Neon's hair as her head rested on her lap.

"Mmmhhmm." Neon mumbled in agreeance.

"I…" Weiss looked down at the empty plate in. "Thank you."

Yang looked again at the four other women there, Weiss setting the plate to the side as Ruby shifted to give her a space to lay down, while Blake and Neon snuggled into the blankets beside her. She realized that her and Ruby weren't the only ones who didn't have real families. Their inclusion didn't mean that she was losing her family time, it just meant that she just had the chance to expand it.

She laid back down and felt the warmth that surrounded her, with her new family.

* * *

 **I want to thank all of you that read this story. The writing a YangxBlakexNeon story was not something that I never thought I would ever even consider writing. But, after I started, I found I couldn't stop and while I am an adamant BumblebY shipper, I find the ships of Nyang and Reading Rainbow adorable too.**

 **It feels kind of odd adding the completed mark to this since it kept getting stretched out longer and longer. (The original ending was supposed to be when all three decided to try dating.) But here it is. I wanted to make it sweat and just tie things up nicely.**

 **Moving forward though, there is already a companion story that I have posted called Momentum that is more of a slice-of-lifey collection of one shots involving our favorite trio!  
**

 **Remember to favorite and review! They help me going forward!**

 **But seriously. All of you who have favorited and followed, and especially those who have taken the time to leave a review, thank you.  
**


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